


Secrets Kept and Secrets Told

by dream_vs_nightmare



Series: A Space Unto Their Own [2]
Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-it fic, jenry, much fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-09 21:39:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4365146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dream_vs_nightmare/pseuds/dream_vs_nightmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I didn’t want to go. With Isaac.”</p><p>Henry can feel something inside him unraveling when she says it again, another truth untold sitting just on the tip of his tongue as he gazes into her warm, dark eyes. He swallows and ventures a soft, "Why?"</p><p>But he can think of why.</p><p>Henry, Jo, and the conversation Lucas doesn't overhear. Now multi-chapter, contains spoilers for episode 01x20 and beyond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where Jo gets a chance to tell Henry why she didn't wanna go to Paris with Isaac - and Lucas doesn't get to hear any of it.

* * *

 "Hi." Jo strides into the shop like it's the most natural of places for her to be, and he supposes that on any other night, it would be.

On any other night, he would whisk her away to the shop after a long day at the precinct, distract her from the reality of her job with Abe's fantastic cooking and his own rather fantastical stories of adventure. But tonight, she's to be on a flight across the Atlantic with none other than her new beau. Tonight, she's to let someone else whisk her away. Tonight, she's not his to enchant over stellar food and even better wine. (He knows well that she’s never really been his to enchant, or his at all.)

"Shouldn't you be on a plane?" And he cannot help but blink once, twice, to make sure she's really standing before him. 

She sets her suitcase down by one of Abe's hulking imperial vases, doesn't look at him as she makes her way further into the shop. "Um..."

His gaze doesn't leave her, now, and he takes a good few steps in her direction as she speaks. Not so many that she feels uncomfortable, of course, but just enough to let her know that yes, he is listening. That yes, he is here.

"I realized that I..." A hundred unsaid words whisper through Henry's mind as Jo pauses, turning towards him. But never, never does he imagine her saying, "I didn't wanna go” until the words are falling from her lips, voice just above a low murmur.

"What?” Henry asks, adding "to Paris?" around the smallest of smiles. As if he's mistaken, as if he's somehow misheard her. He must have misheard her. And there must be some explanation, some reason for all this-

"With Isaac." And there it is.

He wonders, then, if she’d seen the way his smile had faltered when he’d caught a glimpse of the two kissing a few weeks before. He wonders, then, if she could sense the stab of jealousy and regret that’d knifed through him when he realized that it was far too late to admit his feelings for her.

“I didn’t want to go. With Isaac.”

Henry can feel something inside him unraveling when she says it again, another truth untold sitting just on the tip of his tongue as he gazes into her warm, dark eyes. He swallows and ventures a soft, "Why?"

But he can think of why. He can think of every soft look they've ever exchanged, every subtle brushing of fingers or holding of hands. He can call up fond memories of their joking banter on empirical hotness, on gyros, on even death itself. He can remember a handful of whispered conversations long after Abe lay sleeping on the couch between them, can think of laughing together over horrid made-for-television movies with Lucas. And he can recall one long, cold night she'd spent with her head against his shoulder, huddled against him as it'd started to snow. It'd been the anniversary of her husband's death, and he hadn't hesitated to wrap his arm around her, then.

Now, though, he stands rooted in place as he awaits her answer. Afraid to lean any closer, afraid to even breathe, lest he risk breaking the familiar spell falling over them. 

Jo shakes her head, then, looks away from him a moment before she meets his eyes and says, “I don’t know."

He, too, moves to say something, anything, but he's completely and utterly past the point of forming coherent sentences. She waits for him to respond nonetheless, and when he doesn't, can't, she says, "Maybe I thought that I should go to Paris with someone else.”

"Someone like whom, Jo?” He doesn’t know when his pulse began racing, but it echoes in his ears as he takes a step closer to her, and she, him.

“Like…” She pauses as she moves closer still, and her voice sounds the way the softest of kisses feels when she finally murmurs, “Like you, Henry.”

He can imagine it, then, snapshots of them in Paris. Can see the two of them wandering down Parisian lanes arm in arm, getting lost in the city and in each other.

The space between them is charged, electric, as he brings himself back to the present moment. If he were to move a mere inch forward…Well. If he were to move a mere inch forward, he could give her the softest of kisses in reply.

Abe makes his appearance just as Henry’s really and truly considering closing the breath of distance left between he and Jo. He’s caught between asking her to stay a while longer and attending to Abe’s concerns, but she’s out the door and off into the night before he can even begin to voice his question, let alone his feelings.

When she’s gone, Abe tells him all about his latest discovery. It’s one that leaves him speechless, utterly and totally speechless. Because his son believes he’s found Abigail. Really found her, this time. They soon move upstairs to the apartment and talk late into the night, not just about Abe’s discovery but about their memories of Abigail. And not for the first time that week, or even that day, he wishes Jo were around to hear their tales.

He ends up staying awake long after Jo goes home and Abe goes to bed, mind alight with racing thoughts and theories. Some, about death, and others, about Abigail. Many, about Abe, and a good number about Jo. Strange, how effortlessly she’s crept into his thoughts and made a home for herself there in the last few months. Strange, how he can be so honest with her. How he can be so easygoing, so sarcastic, and everything in between. He can be everything, anything with her. And she accepts that, accepts him. 

Thinking about her doesn’t stir the same guilt in him, tonight. No, it doesn’t stir anything of the sort. He’s lived a lifetime of distracting his heart from ever missing Abigail. But when he is with Jo, Abigail is the furthest thing from his mind.

As he lay in bed in the dark, he realizes now that he never got the chance to admit that he feels the same for her as she does for him. He didn’t get a chance to say that he’d follow her anywhere, whether that be down the sunlit soaked streets of Paris or the blood soaked alleyways of New York City crime scenes. He’d never imagined that he could feel quite like this again, like the world is light and new and full of possibility. Really, he knows that the world can be dark and sinister and full of chaos. In yet, when he is with Jo, he knows not chaos. For when he is with Jo, he knows only calm.

It’s a long story, this life of Henry's. But for the first time in a long time, he thinks he’s found someone he can trust with that secret. And as he drifts off to sleep, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can entrust this someone with the other one as well. It’s smaller in scale, this second secret of his, just a simple three words. All the same, though, he thinks that if he can entrust her with the truth of who he is, then he can entrust her with the second truth, as well.

He can only hope that he’s right.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because this needed to happen, so I made it happen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What the hell, Henry?"
> 
> And for all the world, he can't seem to hold back a smile as he moves over to the window and murmurs, "Good morning, Detective. Wishing you'd gone to Paris, yet?" into the phone.
> 
> Guilt hadn't eaten away at him the night before, but it eats away at him now when she gives a soft, sleepy, "Not a chance" in answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where everything changed when the Guilty Feels attacked.

* * *

A long night bleeds into an even longer morning, one where sleep evades even the immortal. Or at least, it evades this particular immortal. And Henry can't find the least bit of humor in the thought, today.

He pushes himself up out of bed and trudges into the kitchen somewhere between three-thirty and four o'clock in the morning, when the sky is still deciding between a hazy purple and a soft, muted blue. The loft he shares with Abe is still and quiet as he fixes himself a cup of tea. In the haze of his thoughts, he lets the bag of tea steep longer than usual in his mug. And when he finally gets around to actually taking a sip, the liquid sits harsh and bitter on his tongue. Needs cream. More sugar. And he, more sleep.

But there isn't enough sleep in the world to cure him of this. The heartache isn't new. He's well used to it, has had decades to adapt. The restlessness, too, is nothing he hasn't dealt with before. Even so, in his heart of hearts, he knows he's to stop this madness before he lets it ruin him. Knows retracing Abigail's last steps will do nothing to slow his own as he paces, wild, across the floor. Knows plotting her last movements, looking over her box of things, and leafing through their old photo album will be of no help. And he does it anyway, long enough to drive himself mad with the revelation that  _Abigail's out there somewhere_. He goes through everything of hers and even things of theirs, trying to find a clue to tie it all together. Jo would know what to do. She'd know, and even if she didn't, she'd at least pose a question, see a clue, find a connection he's been missing. Yes, Jo would know what to do. If he could just call her...

So manic is he that he almost does, swiping the living room phone off the receiver and dialing her number (when had his pacing led him to the living room? He doesn't remember, and it frightens him a little). He knows he can't truly ask her about the case - not this time. But he rings her anyway, if only to feel like all is right with the world for a moment. Just as he expected, the line rings and rings. Once, twice, three times, and he's near to giving up when her groggy voice meets his ears on the fourth ring.

"Detective Martinez." Oh, he could weep at the sound of that voice.

"Yes, Jo?" He wonders if his sounds as out of sorts as he feels.

"Mm, I'm up. I'm up." She sounds like she's still half asleep, and he damns himself for waking her. Realization must dawn on her a moment later as she sits up, looks at the clock, maybe. " _What the hell, Henry?_ "

And for all the world, he can't seem to hold back a smile as he moves over to the window and murmurs, "Good morning, Detective. Wishing you'd gone to Paris, yet?" into the phone.

Guilt hadn't eaten away at him the night before, but it eats away at him now when she gives a soft, sleepy, "Not a chance" in answer. They talk for a few minutes more of inane, trivial things, though he does more of the talking as she walks the line between half-awake and so very asleep.

Henry knows he should not take such pleasure in hearing her voice like this, soft and full of sleep as he holds the phone to his ear. Not when he's no idea what happened to Abigail. Not when her things surround him, not when her memory's so close. But oh, he does. For when he is with Jo, for when he merely listens to the sound of her voice, all else slips away. More than anything else right now, he needs all else to slip away.

He nurses his third cup of tea as he moves to sit on the couch, eyes flickering closed as Jo tells him a long-forgotten story from her teenage years. Then another from her college days, of which he's yet to hear much about. As intrigued as he is to learn of her past, guilt claws away at him again - because what has he told her of his own past? He brings himself to swallow the thought for another time, tells himself he'll be able to dwell on it all (and he means all) later.

"I've never met anyone quite like you, y'know that, Henry?" He thinks it rather adorable when she giggles (he thought she only did so when drunk) and asks in that whispered way of hers, "So what's your secret?"

He's had much time to perfect his answer. Some forty years earlier, maybe less, he'd started keeping a list of all his favorite responses. All of them, untruths. All of them, lies. And he doesn't know if it's from the lack of sleep or the sudden and almost drowning wave of affection he feels for her, but he realizes that he cannot bring himself to lie to her, this morning.

"It's a long story, that one."

The words to that story sit just on the tip of his tongue as the first rays of dawn bleed across the sky. It's a simple truth, these words, and not much different than any he's told Jo before. All around wry smiles and little shakes of the head, as though he were joking about the life he's lived. But she deserves better than that.

"You can tell me, Henry. You know that."

"Can I really?" He can feel something inside him unraveling again as she laughs, warm and low in her throat, before he hears her murmur,

"You can trust me."

He knows he can, knows it down to the very bones of him. So he asks only, "Shall we start at the beginning, Detective?"

She thinks it as good a place to start as any, and his stomach fills with butterflies for reasons even he cannot explain.

But as he lays on the couch, half asleep and more than halfway to recounting his story, the gravity of the situation hits him sudden and hard. Abigail could still be alive. And even if she isn't, even if she's dead and gone, he thinks it cheap to tell Jo of his secret when his wife's memories loom heavy over his heart. He thinks it cheap to tell her of the secrets he keeps when Abigail's ghost still looms large in his mind.

Whatever this thing is between them, he doesn't know. But he likes what he has with Jo, and he'd hate to lose it to this. To this pulsating madness in his blood, to this unending manic state that'd nearly crushed him body and soul the first time. The thought of losing her is the only thing strong enough, frightening enough, to drown out his need to tell her the truth of who he is.

So he bids Jo a goodnight (when really, it's a new day) and hangs up the phone before he can tell her exactly what he's been keeping from her.

* * *

A few hours' rest, a long shower, and one change of clothes later, Henry's ready to face the day. Or at least, he's as ready as he'll ever be. By the time Abe joins him downstairs in the shop, he's already swept the living room clean of any evidence of his breakdown. And he feels okay as his eyes pour over Abigail's old hospital file. He feels...stable.

"Shoulda known Mom would be living under an alias." Comes the sound of Abe's voice beside him, pulling him out of a faraway memory.

"Sylvia Blake?" His son echoes the name written atop her file, smiling some.

He almost smiles back as he says, "And I should've known that she'd combine the names of our favorite poets." His gaze falls back to the sheet in his hands, yellowed with age and time, thoughts distant as he murmurs, "To think that she lived so close for all these years..."

And Abe brings him back to reality as he so often does when he points out how old Abigail was when she'd left them. He supposes he'd gotten caught up in the moment, gotten lost in the very idea that they could've still been a family, somehow. But he has to face facts, and the facts are grim at best.

"Chances are she died years ago...but it certainly beats the alternative that she simply forgot about us." His heart aches at the thought.

Again, Abe sets him straight and manages to give him some hope. He must get it from his mother, all that optimism. Her stubborn nature, too, Henry decides as Abe denies him the chance to drive his car.

"Sorry, Dad, but I'm mortal."

Henry glowers at his son as he grabs he moves to jacket off the coat rack, protesting, "I only floored the gas that  _one_  time! And you weren't even  _there_  for the car chase in Milan!" as they leave the shop. Abe, to his credit, laughs and says, "And you say  _I'm_  the one with the rebellious streak? I gotta switch you over to unsweeted tea or something."

They drive for a long while, each filling up the space with their usual stories and jokes. When it doesn't seem that Abe's listening to his talk of last month's case, Henry dares add, "And did I mention that Jo asked me out for dinner afterward?"

That gets his son's attention. He takes his eyes off the road to look at Henry a moment, who's wearing a rather smug smile. "I know what you're going to ask, Abe, and the answer is no."

"No?" Abe repeats, as if perhaps he hasn't heard him right. "You didn't kiss her, not even once?"

Henry sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, smile melting into somewhat of a grin. "No, Abraham. I did not kiss her. Just as I've refrained from doing so on all our other outings."

"Yeah, yeah. Heard it all before, I get it. You're saving yourself for the aliens, or whatever it is that'll be here long after the rest of us are gone." Henry's word choice must dawn on Abe, then, because he slams his foot on the break and the car lurches to a stop. "Wait. You refrained? Does that mean that you..."

"Wanted to?" Henry offers, eyes moving to stare out the window so he doesn't have to bear the full extent of Abe's disapproving gaze. Like he'd expected, Abe lets out a deep breath and says nothing. His silence is all the answer Henry needs. In an instant, he moves to clarify, to apologize. For how could he be so insensitive, so thoughtless?

"Abe, I'm sorry, I didn't think to-" He starts.

"No, no. I was only gonna say it's about damn time." Abe says, then, wrinkled hand moving to squeeze Henry's palm. "I told you, you needed somebody to share your secret with. Didja think I meant only that?"

Oh.

The weight of the morning and distant night before still looming heavy in Henry's mind, he gives Abe's hand a squeeze back before getting lost in his thoughts again. And each one cries guilty, guilty, guilty.

They turn off the highway soon enough, cruising through a sleepy little town much like the countless others they've seen over the years. He's got fond memories of their roadtripping days, when he and Abigail had decided to take Abe along on one of their holiday excursions. What started out as a getaway for the long weekend escalated into a full on tour of the East Coast. The Fourth of July found them in Boston under the stars, gazing up at the sky in wonder as fireworks soared above their heads. They'd seen it all, city after city and state after state. But the wonder of it all never ceased, and they'd arrived home in New York only when July deepened into August. August spelled change for the Morgan family, then, one that'd felt irreversible. Life changing. But he's got a sinking feeling that whatever happens today may trump even his old and distant fear of losing Abe to the Vietnam War.

"Are you certain this is the right road, Abraham?" He doesn't remember when he pulled the map into his lap, and that, too, scares him.

"Second right after the big red barn, I'm positive." Abe murmurs as they travel further down a barren stretch of road.

Henry can't help but wonder aloud what Abigail would've been doing living out here. There isn't another soul for miles, and he can see no sense in the location. She was always one for crowds, for noise, for the thriving and chaotic hum of city life. Though Abe suggests that perhaps she'd been looking for some peace and quiet, Henry cannot help but think that'd been hiding.

"From what?" His son asks, chancing a glance at him as though it isn't obvious.

"From me." Is all Henry can think to say, inwardly wincing at memories he's buried so deep in his mind, he almost forgets they'd happened at all. And Abe, bless his soul, only squeezes his hand again and says that they don't have to do this if Henry doesn't want to. But it's not so much a question of want anymore - it's a question of need. Even though this case could destroy every secret he's worked so hard to control and contain, he  _needs_  to know what happened to Abigail in her final days.

So the two step out of the car and move towards the house, a little cottage by the river. Who they see raking the leaves has both Henry and Abe stopping dead in their tracks. So like Abigail is the woman before them that Henry has to bring himself not to call out her name.

"That can't be her." Abe murmurs at his side.

"Course not," Henry reasons as they move closer, willing his wild pulse to calm and slow.

She turns toward them when they finally approach, with Henry murmuring that they're looking for Abigail Morgan. And at last, his hopes somehow rise and plummet in the same instant when he realizes that the woman before them isn't her.

"Sorry, who did you say you were looking for?"

He blinks the desolation out of his eyes and bids her an apology around the smallest of smiles. "Sorry, uh...Sylvia Blake."

The woman introduces herself as Maude, and they talk for a few minutes, with Henry trying hard to keep his questions at a minimum. To act like more of Abe's best friend, close companion, than grieving and guilty widower. So he's rather proud of himself when he manages to ask, "Did she mention her life before she came here to Tarrytown? Did she mention a family?" in his usual cool and composed manner.

But his whole being aches when the old woman says she believes Abigail was trying to get over a bad break up, and that it must've been hard at her age. While she and Abe move inside the cottage to take a look at a box of Abigail's old things, Henry ventures into the garden - lured them by a plot of dark purple blooms. Hellebores...her favorite flower.

"According to legend, the poison from the winter rose killed Alexander the Great." He walks toward the wildflowers as if in a dream, distantly aware of the cottage's owner telling Abe that his mother planted them herself. He can still remember the day he'd given her a smaller, potted version when they'd first arrived in Brooklyn. So lost in old memories is he that he doesn't realize what lay beside the flowers for a good minute or two.

But then he comes to, and the conclusion he draws is one that turns even his stomach.

"Is something wrong?" Comes the sound of the old woman's voice once more, and he is so very glad he perfected the art of looking calm and composed years earlier.

He explains his theory to her, then, barely aware of how Abe murmurs that he was a grave digger in another life. No, he's only aware of the fact that he needs to get digging. _Now_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd originally thought that Abe urges Henry to tell someone else about his secret in an earlier episode, but it turns out that that convo comes along in the finale. Ah, well!
> 
> I wanted to leave the story where it lie: neat and tidy. But Henry's life is not neat and tidy. And thus, the story continues. Expect a lot of canon and a whole lot more canon divergence in the chapters to come.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh, this is weird." Henry sends a prayer to every deity in existence that whatever it is Lucas finds weird, he will not animate the gestures for them and launch him ever further into this unending purgatory of a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where Henry grows closer to learning the truth surrounding Abigail's death and fears he may lose a close friend in the process. Prepare yourself for all kinds of feels.

* * *

Henry hears the telltale clink of metal on bone as the tip of his spade unearths just what he'd hope he wouldn't find: human remains. He holds his breath as he brushes a mound of dirt away, then finds himself reeling back and away when he realizes he's just unearthed a skull. Abigail's skull.

"It's her, isn't it?" Abe asks as his hand finds Henry's shoulder. But he cannot form the words to reply, for if he moves to say anything, anything at all, he knows he will break. Later, as he stands just beyond the lip of the grave, he thinks that all would be better if Jo were here. Not fixed, and certainly not okay, but better. Better is what he needs right now. He's in the middle of explaining to the good Tarrytown sheriff just what a New York City M.E.'s doing all the way out here when a CSU lackey  _throws one of Abigail's bones down onto the tarp._

"D'you mind telling them to be more careful?" Before I return the favor, comes a dark thought, unbidden and unhinged, at the back of his mind. "Perhaps I should supervise."

Just as the sheriff goes ranting on about what Henry is and isn't allowed to do without police clearance, Jo's voice washes over him. She herself is soon to follow, glancing at him as she murmurs, "Sorry I'm late, Doctor."

He damns himself when he hears the brisk, hard edge in her voice, and doesn't hesitate to damn himself for a fourth time that day when CSU announces their latest find - because he'd recognize the object in hand anywhere. Henry moves closer to the grave regardless, can hardly breathe when Abe whispers, just as broken as he, "That's Mom's."

"That's her keychain."

He doesn't miss the way Jo bites her lip and turns away when he follows Abe back towards the house. She asks no questions as he wraps his arm around Abe's shoulders, and for that, Henry is grateful.

Back at the lab, he cannot bear to look at her when she asks if he's okay. For he's already proven himself incapable of lying to her, today, and he cannot lie when looking someone straight in the face. So he looks elsewhere, at the floor, at the examining slab, at anywhere but into her eyes when he says that yes, he's fine. He procures a sad excuse of a smile for her and ventures toward Lucas across the room.

“Lucas, why don't you start us out today?"

His assistant's more than happy to do so, and Jo lingers by his side as they listen to his analysis. He can do this, he can do this, if he just pretends that the remains before them are not that of his wife's. Depressed skull fractures, sharp force trauma, and he keeps telling himself that he can stomach this but it's a lie.

"The object punctured the brain stem-" And here, Lucas mimes the action the killer would've taken and he can stand it no more, closing his eyes and turning away. He can feel Jo's gaze on him as he opens his eyes once more, staring straight ahead as Lucas talks of Abigail's final moments. She'd been paralyzed. His sweet, sweet Abigail had spent the last moments of her life  _paralyzed._

"Oh, this is weird." Henry sends a prayer to every deity in existence that whatever it is Lucas finds weird, he will not animate the gestures for them and launch him ever further into this unending purgatory of a day.

The younger man's revelation proves to be his saving grace, and never has Henry been so relieved to hear Lucas say, "Which would make her be only about twenty-five years old" than he is in this moment.

"Which means that she couldn't be..." No, she couldn't be. The restless, wild madness in him returns, then, and he kisses Lucas' cheek in thank you before murmuring, "My apologizes. If you could excuse me."

He turns and leaves the morgue with a slack-jawed Lucas and Jo staring after him.

* * *

 After telling Abe what he knows and going through Abigail's last little box of things, they're no closer to finding answers than they were the day before. But even so, getting up that morning is a touch easier for Henry. For one thing, because he's managed to get a few hours rest, and for another...well, for another because he'd dreamt not of Abigail, but of Jo. He has to swallow a mouthful of guilt, of shame, when he sees her stride into the morgue around eleven. It's not like he'd dreamt of anything explicit, no, but she'd been occupying a good deal of his thoughts in the last few days, and the truth of it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. For he shouldn't be thinking of another woman when his wife could very well be out there, abandoned in a shallow grave like the Jane Doe on the slab before him.

Moments after he's summarized his observations to Jo, Lucas comes into the room with good news - a possible lead as to who the victim was.

"Looks like we found our girl." Says Jo, and Henry pretends not to notice how Lucas slips out of the room just as he murmurs, "How would you like to take a trip with me, Detective?"

Her lips twitch upwards in the barest hint of a smile, then, his question an echo of the Paris conversation they’d had just a few nights before. Of course she’d like to take a trip with him. Just…probably _not_ to where he’s planning on taking her today.

He teases her about it soon after they get to the hospital. "Just think. You could be in Paris. But instead..." He pauses here, half-smile curving his lips as he looks to the drab hallway, awful wallpaper, and outdated lighting fixtures. "You're in a Tarrytown emergency room."

"I made the right choice." Jo murmurs around a smile of her own. "But seriously, you should've come to me first."

She continues on as he tilts his head to the side in wordless question. "Lucas, really?"

"Abe went to Lucas," He insists, licking the inside of his lower lip before he adds, "I would've come to you."

His voice is soft, warm, as he murmurs, "Not many people I trust in this world. You're in rare company, you know."

Jo confesses, then, that she'd been afraid she'd made things uncomfortable the other night. Oh, how he could kiss this woman. There's the thought again, sudden and alive in his mind. It overshadows all else for a moment, and in that moment, he says, "It would take a lot more than that to make  _me_  uncomfortable."

And he means it, too. They seem to gravitate towards each other as they stand there together, and he cannot bring himself to look away from her warm, dark eyes for even a moment. That familiar, easy spell is falling over them now, even here, and he dares murmur, "The modern art that adorns these walls, however, does" as he takes a subtle step towards her.

She, too, moves forward to meet him, smiling some as the distance between them narrows. "Ah, so you  _are_  a classicist. How about taking me to a classics museum one day, huh? Show me what the big hype's about."

Henry's own smile blooms bright across his face, now, and he's just about to assure her that the hype is, in fact, much deserved, when one of the hospital staff strides down the hall reciting the details of their case. And so reality intervenes, spell dissipating just as soon as it appears. But they accomplish much in the next few hours, gleaning some much needed information from a seasoned nurse before moving on to their next target: a federal judge by the name of Teddy Graves. 

The pair decides that while Judge Graves is certainly accommodating, he's leaving out some key points from his story. That much is proven correct when their questioning leads them to the court parking lot, where the Judge's oldster car sits in a lonely space by the front of the building. His car might just be _the_ car involved in the hit and run, as it's painted an awful shade of green to, perhaps, hide whatever damage done to it almost thirty years prior.

After the good Judge speeds away into the fading afternoon, Jo turns to him and asks if they’re just accused a federal judge of murder.

In way of agreement, Henry murmurs only, “And _damn_ , did it feel good.”

He knows he’s gotten too close to this case, but he can’t seem to summon up the strength to walk away from it. Not now, not when they’re so close to finding the guilty. (But he is too, isn’t he?)

* * *

Later that same night, Abe feigns alarm back at the shop when Lucas mentions that he’s got some merchandize in need of unloading. But he drops the act soon enough and murmurs, “Whaddya got?"

Neither seem to understand that when Lucas says, "dirt", he means it in the literal sense. Henry lets his assistant rave about how they don't have a lab to test the samples for a good minute or two before he and Abe exchange a quick glance.

"What d'you say, Abe?" He drawls as he regards his assistant once more. "D'you think he's ready?"

Lucas, to his credit, looks at once baffled and a touch intrigued by the question. “Ready for what?”

But Henry offers no explanation, merely widens his eyes and raises his eyebrows as if to say, "Wouldn't you like to know, my little prodigy?"

Minutes later, the pair arrive in Henry's laboratory with a couple boxes of dirt in their arms. His lips curve into the barest hint of a smirk when Lucas murmurs, "You're a beautiful man, Henry. When I thought you've peaked, you just go and take it to a whole new level."

The boy reminds him of James, sometimes. The likeness is funnier still when Henry remembers that he'd kissed James, once.

He retires to the living room after a good hour or so of investigation, leaving Lucas to dig around in the dirt he'd unearthed, and, consequently, have the lab all to himself. While Lucas unearths a tie pin in the soil, Henry unearths a long lost letter from his beloved in an old book of poetry. Later, he'd like to think that both spur him on to find out the truth. But he's walked the line between truth and madness, before, and he knows when he's closer to one than the other. 

When he assaults Judge Grave and wails, "What did you do to the nurse?" as a pair of body guards take him away, he knows he's stepped over that line and entered straight into madness. The guards deposit him at the nearest police station, read him his rights, and lock him away in a cell for the night. It's cleaner than many a cell he's been confined to, this one, but he doesn't sleep. No, for he's afraid that relinquishing his mind to sleep will only further the delirium that's festering in the depths of his mind, his soul.

* * *

The door to Henry's cell unlocks with a whine and a click the next morning, and he cracks an eye open to regard the one responsible; the other eye opens, too, as a distant voice says, "He's all yours."

His eyes widen as he moves to take in whoever’s come to release him. Certainly not Abe, and decidedly not Lucas - he hadn’t told them. His gaze moves over dark hair, high cheekbones, a face symmetrical enough to break the strongest of hearts, and eyes warm enough to comfort even the likes of him.

 _Jo_.

Oh, bloody hell. He rises from his makeshift cot and strides over to her, looking for all the world like a lost and apologetic puppy.

But she wants none of his spoon-fed apologies, today. Wants none of his usual flippancy, doesn't take his smooth and easy answer of, "Abe's my oldest, closest friend and his mother's disappearance is a festering wound."

"No. Why does a thirty year old case have you acting like this?" He doesn't answer.

"Who is she?" How can he even begin?

"Abe's mother," is all he offers, all he _can_ offer, adding a shrug of his shoulders for good measure. But Jo's not finished yet.

"No. Who is she to you?" Every word is enunciated in the heat of her anger, her desperation.

 _To you_  echoes in his ears, and his pulse beats hard and fast as he looks into the depths of her eyes. Though they gleam low and dark as always, they've frosted over with a layer of ice even he hasn't seen the likes of in her. What he tells her now could shatter everything. His position at the morgue, his polished reputation, and the very lies that hold his life in New York together - all could be jeopardized. But what he tries so hard to hide could ruin all that's between them immeasurably faster, and he fears losing that over all else.

So Henry Morgan looks into Jo's dark, wild eyes and says, without fanfare, "Her name is Abigail."

"But isn't your ex's name...?” She sputters for words, now, and he can only nod in agreement, that yes, his ex's name is also Abigail.

"And they are one in the same, you see."

A myriad of emotions flicker over her face at his admission, and some sick, sad part of him knew it'd end like this. Some sick, sad part of him jeered at his every attempt to tell her, because that part of him knew how it would play out. Henry'd always imagined she'd slap him clear across the face before taking her leave of him, but she does worse in reality.

She takes a step away from him, an irrevocable step that needs no translation: she doesn't believe him.

And he frightens her.

He wonders, then, if he can sink any further into the depths of hell than he already has today. When Jo turns away from him to take a call and then strides out of the cell without so much as a single glance back in his direction, he decides that he can, in fact, sink lower and further than he already has.

As he follows some distance behind the good Detective, he can only hope that whatever rules the Underworld will make good on the day’s events and drag him to hell's gates before he can muck up the remainder of the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as of now, I've already written the next three chapters of this fic! *happy dance* I imagine there'll be seven or eight in total, but we'll see. Considering adding a pun about time somewhere along the line because, well. ;) It's necessary.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t apologize for what you feel, Doctor. I don’t have any jurisdiction over that.” The Lieutenant’s voice softens a moment, smile flickering over her face before she moves in for the kill. “But I do have a say over what happens in my precinct. And whatever lover’s quarrel you and Jo have found yourself in?” She pauses here, and in that pause, Henry’s mind catches and snags on the word lover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where Henry and Jo grow closer in the midst of a case that could make or break their friendship. Mortinez shippers, be prepared for all the feels in this chapter.
> 
> Trigger warning for mentions of suicide towards the chapter's end. If you know that that sort of thing triggers you, don't be afraid to skip over a couple paragraphs and fill your head with Henry's little revelation on he and Jo's relationship.

* * *

The good Judge comes to the station of his own violation, which is at once strange and surprising. Henry's gotten accustomed to watching Jo haul the suspect into the back of her cruiser before they head toward the precinct. But here they are, with Jo striding into the room as Judge Graves sits at the interrogation table. Graves…a fitting name for the bastard.

“Belinda Smoot wasn’t just some girl I met a party.” He offers as he moves to pace the floor, and Henry doesn’t realizes he’s whisper-hissed, “you lying bastard” aloud until Lieutenant Reece’s gaze falls over him.

Graves confesses to knowing the victim for much longer than he’d originally stated, even admitting to having a fling with her the spring of his junior year in college. 

“The spring she was murdered.” Jo finishes.

He assures her that he had nothing to do with that, and Jo switches tactics, leaning forward over the table as she asks, “What about the hit and run accident?”

“Happened, uh, exactly as your colleague…” Graves may not see the way Jo’s jaw clenches just so at the title, but Henry does. Oh, Henry does. "Says it did."

Reece, too catches on to the almost imperceptible gesture and gives him another look. This one's longer, harder.

“Doctor Morgan?”

“Yes, Lieutenant?” He can guess what’s to come, but a smile still curves his lips upward when she asks just what is going on between him and Detective Martinez.

Like many a question posed to him in his long life, Henry supplies that, “It’s a long story." 

And as Jo continues to interrogate the good Judge, Reece moves in to interrogate Henry. She notes that his relationship with Jo has strayed a touch from the professional, and Henry is quick to offer an apology.

“Don’t apologize for what you feel, Doctor. I don’t have any jurisdiction over that.” The Lieutenant’s voice softens a moment, smile flickering over her face before she moves in for the kill. “But I _do_ have a say over what happens in my precinct. And whatever lover’s quarrel you and Jo have found yourself in?” She pauses here, and in that pause, Henry’s mind catches and snags on the word _lover_.

Is that what she thinks they are? He doesn’t have the breath to explain or the mind to shatter the illusion, right now. Maybe in a minute.

“Just keep it out of your work. You two are a damn good team if I’ve ever seen one, however unofficial it may be. And you get me results, Henry. I like that.” The smile fades, now, as she murmurs, “But I get the feeling that you’ve been keeping something from me. If it doesn’t influence those results, then I don’t really care to know. But if it’s going to jeopardize your relationship with Detective Martinez…”

Henry chances a glance at Jo, then, and he sucks in a deep breath of air at the thought of losing her. Reece must think him captivated by the detective's looks, but in that moment, he’s not the words in his head to say that Jo means so much more to him than that. A minute comes and goes, with him neither explaining the situation or shattering the illusion.

“If this secret of yours is going to jeopardize your relationship with her, then I suggest you come out with it before there’s no relationship to salvage.”

Thoughts slow to form into words, he doesn’t move to respond right away. So Reece takes hold of his arm and says only, “Let her in, Henry.” A smile flits across her face again as she adds, "If anyone deserves a glimpse into that head of yours, it’s Jo.”

He gives her a small smile in kind, and the Lieutenant seems to take that as a sign of wordless agreement. So the observation room falls quiet, with both turning their attention to the ongoing interrogation once more. The good Judge procures a folder from his briefcase, offering it to Jo with the face of a man hardened by regret and time. 

“It’s the file…of the man I killed on the night of April 7th, 1985.” That sounds like a confession if he’s ever heard one.

Lieutenant Reece turns to meet Henry’s gaze, and they share a look. So Graves’ admitted to one crime…but what of the other?

* * *

Henry leaves the morgue for the night around the same time as usual, but without the sound of Jo’s approaching footsteps and easy offer of takeout food to stop him as it so often does. He’s usually one to give her a deliberating look, as though he truly has to consider her question. And she, to her credit, usually waits it out a few moments before tugging him forward by the scarf and murmuring, “Come on, partner” around one of those soft smiles of hers. But tonight is not one of their usual nights, so here he resides: home, without her.

As his eyes look unseeing over Abigail’s letter for the umpteenth time, he has to ask himself if seeing this case through to the end is worth all he’s got to lose. Jo’s warm laughter and joking banter ripple through his mind, then, and it’s joined by Lucas’ shriek of joy over finding them holding hands a moment. That, too, is met with Hanson’s muttered comments about British charm, and Reece’s decision to dub the four of them Team Mort.

“Oh, how long are you gonna do this Henry?” Comes the sound of Abe’s voice behind him, bringing him clear out of his reverie.

“Do what?” He asks without looking up.

“Torture yourself with the life that Mom imagined for the two of you in the cottage, with the little flower garden and the root cellar.”

Henry hangs his head, then, for how can he explain that his mind had been lingering elsewhere entirely? But then an idea comes to him and chases the tinge of guilt away. He turns towards his son with a telltale look on his face before scrambling up and out of his chair, grabbing his jacket and all but running for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Abe asks after him as he takes the steps two at a time.

“The root cellar!” is all Henry offers before disappearing down the stairs and out of sight. “I’ll see you later tonight, Abraham. And if I’m not back by tomorrow morning…”

“I’ll be waiting for you by the river,” His son finishes, voice carrying from upstairs as Henry pushes open the shop’s door and races off into the night.

* * *

The bright red of the door swings open to reveal none other than Detective Martinez.

“Henry. What are you…uhm-“ She’s trying and failing not to look surprised by his presence, and he’s trying and failing not to smile at her. “Do you wanna come in?”

On any other night, he would love to. On any other night, he would be touched and a bit flattered at the offer. And on any other night, he thinks that he would be unable to resist saying anything but “yes, that’d be lovely” as he looked into those warm, dark eyes of hers.

He thinks of saying that for a moment, for just one, but then he remembers his earlier revelation. Remembers what’s changed between them. “That’s very kind of you to offer, but um…”

Jo nods her understanding, and he pauses another moment more before continuing on. “In her letter, Abraham’s mother-“

“Your wife,” She supplements, and he cannot deny her that fact, so he merely gives a small smile of wordless agreement before speaking once more.

“She made reference to a root cellar down by the river. When you surveyed the crime scene, did you…?”

Her eyebrows furrow as he speaks, the detective in her pushing away all thought of everything else for a moment, and she gives a shake of her head at his unfinished question.

“I didn’t see one.” Then, with barely contained horror, “You don’t think Abe’s mom was locked in a cellar, do you?”

He’s gone over the possibility, yes. And though his heart aches at the thought, he cannot say it stirs the same wild feeling in him as it would’ve in the days before. He needs to know what happened to Abigail. Of course he does. But he needs to stay grounded in the here and now, too. And the woman before him is in the here and now.

“Something in my heart tells me Abigail never left that farm alive.”

She looks away from him, then, and there’s a frightening instant where he worries she’s going to turn him away, back into the snowy street and home to Abe. His fears are proven wrong when she meets his gaze once more, dark eyes gleaming low and bright with determination.

“We’ll find her, Henry. Whatever happened to her…” Her jaw sets as she murmurs, “Whatever happened to her, you deserve to know.”

* * *

Lamplight paints Jo’s face a soft yellow as she moves a gloved hand over the car’s heating vents. He moves his own hands out of the way, but a touch too slow. Their fingertips brush, and he wonders if she, too, can feel the connection move through her like a live wire.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-“ She starts.

“Yes, I figured as much. But it’s okay, no harm done. See?” Henry says as he holds up his hands and wriggles his fingers about in his leather gloves.

“Mm, I do.” Jo offers as they drive down another quiet stretch of road. The silence that surrounds them is almost comfortable, and he so very wishes he could keep it that way. But he owes her the truth, and he thinks now is as good a time as any.

“Do you want to know, Jo?” He asks without preamble. 

She meets his eyes, then, and her voice is as soft as falling snow when she says, “I don’t think I do, Henry.”

Her rejection is simple, but it hurts plain as day.

“I just…it’s a lot to handle. It’s a lot for _anyone_ to handle. Whatever this is between us,” And here she gestures between them with her free hand as the other holds tight to the steering wheel. “It doesn’t mean you have to tell me.”

“I do, Jo. I owe you that much.” His hand falls to her shoulder, lingering there not even an instant before he pulls away. “I owe you so much, really and truly-”

“ _You_ owe _me_?” Laughter glimmers in her eyes and creeps into her voice, as thought the thought’s a touch too ridiculous to believe. But he nods in agreement nonetheless, saying nothing more in hopes she’ll elaborate for him.

“Henry, I don’t think you understand. If anyone here owes the other anything, then it’s me.” He can hear the sincerity in her voice, joined by an emotion he’s almost afraid to name as she puts the car in park and shuts off the engine. "I may have saved you from speeding cars and rampant killers, but I’m the one who owes you their life.”

There’s a moment where he doesn’t know quite which case she’s referring to, for there have been a good few. Their first case together, where she’d gotten shot and had lay too still beneath him, still enough to set his thoughts racing and pulse pounding. There’d been their third case, too, where poison had spread through her hand until he'd, well…until he'd thought to light it on fire and tug it into a beaker of neutralizing liquid in their suspect’s lab. He can recall many a case where he’s lent her his medical expertise, and many more where he's worried for her safety rather than his own. But he soon thinks that maybe she isn’t truly talking about anything work related at all.

 Oh. _Oh._  

He sucks in a harsh breath as the thought of losing her races through his mind for the second time in about as many hours, tries hard to focus on the world around him as a hundred million scenarios run through his head. He wonders how long it’s been since she’s last considered it. A week? A month? Had it been a fleeting thought, a whisper-soft voice at the back of her head after long nights without Sean by her side? Or had it grown into a plan, one she’d had every intention of following through on until…until-

Until their easy partnership began. Until their late-night talks over whatever takeout suited her mood and their unending banter over anything and everything. Until their monthly sci-fi movie marathons with Lucas turned weekly, under the pretense that she’d really wanted to watch the original Star Trek series. Until they’d started sitting so close on the couch that there wasn’t any possible room for Lucas to squeeze between them, and he’d given up any hope at trying.

Until their partnership had bloomed into something like friendship, and friendship into something more. Something that included small phrases like _true affection_ and soft smiles when saying goodnight. Something that included the familiar touch of her hand on his shoulder when he’d gotten lost to the ghosts of his past. Something that included a hundred thousand shared looks between them that’d never needed words.

It occurs to him, then, that she may care for him just as much as he cares for her. 

When he manages to find his voice a long moment later (and somehow, it’s only been a moment), he murmurs, “And there’s no one I’d rather jump in front of speeding cars and rampant killers for.”

It’s a simple truth, this one, but he thinks it’ll suffice for the thousand things he isn’t brave enough to say to her, yet.

“Is that British for something?” Comes the soft sound of her voice as she turns toward him, fighting a smile. For it may be a simple truth, but it’s also a morbid one, too. And she’s forever trying (and failing) not to encourage him. Though sometimes, she does let him indulge in a good pun about death without rolling her eyes _too_ much. She doesn’t roll her eyes now, though. No, she looks to him with a curious tilt of her head and the ghost of a smile on her lips.

And the spell that binds and connects them falls over the car anew, then, as the windows fog and the air warms with heat he knows isn’t from the car. And he smiles at her as he dares lean forward and squeeze her knee. “I’m beginning to think so, Detective.”

“Yeah, okay.” She doesn’t shy away from his touch, nor his gaze, as she says, “Seduce me with your European charms later” around that lingering smile of hers. It fades a touch, then falters completely when she murmurs, "Because right now, we’ve still got a case to solve. And I’d appreciate it if you _didn’t_ offer yourself up as target practice tonight.”

“Right.” He’d nearly forgot. How could he forget? How could he be so thoughtless as to forget-

As if she can sense his own self-destructive thoughts at the realization, she moves her hand atop his and doesn’t pull away. The single touch is enough to quiet the mad rush of guilt that threatens to stir in him. They sit like that a while, their hands resting together over her knee, as he summons every last ounce of his cool composure. He’s got a sinking feeling that he’s going to need it for whatever they’re to find in the root cellar. So he wills each and every grim thought away, concentrating instead on the here and now (because she’s in the here and now) to ease his mind. He can do this. As long as she’s beside him, he can do this.

When at last he and Jo move out of the car and into the cold night, he thinks himself grateful for her presence by his side. She is fierce and lovely in the blue half light of their flashlights. And though he offers a hand to help her over a fallen tree when they come to it, she declines with a soft smile and a shake of her head.

“This is it.” He says into the crisp February air upon finding the root cellar, breath ghosting over his face and spiraling into the night. And fierce, lovely, and a force all her own, the good Detective follows him into the shadowy unknown of the cellar without question.

She leads and he follows until a patchy call with Hanson has them splitting up. Her, to call him back from a landline, and he, to uncover Abigail’s last living moments.

He should’ve known not to let her go alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, we get a look into Jo's thoughts as she phones Hanson, saves Henry's life, and encounters someone who claims to know Henry's secret.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a part of her that wants to know the whole story, that wants to know what goes in that head of Henry’s. She wants to know where he disappears to in the space between her questions and his answers, wants to know what he sees when his gaze grows distant and heavy, like he bears the weight of a hundred lifetimes.
> 
> And she should’ve known, then. She should’ve known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where Jo pays Adam a visit. It does not end well.
> 
> This chapter weighs in at around 6,000 words and includes alll the feels. Didn't feel like splitting it up as I did with chapters two and three, so enjoy it, friends! ^_^
> 
> Trigger warning for drugged drinks and mentions of blood. If you know these things bother you, then by all means, just skip ahead a ways. All you really need to know? Adam places doubt in Jo's head.

* * *

"So I checked if Belinda had any visitors. Nobody signed in…" Hanson trails off a moment, and Jo can tell he's about to have a revelation. "But who else hangs out in the ER with a gun and doesn't have to sign in?"

It's not delivered with as much British charm as Henry's own theories, no, but it's still something.

"Cops." She realizes at the same time as he does. The air about the house is quiet, so quiet she can hear tires crunch over dead leaves on the road. It's probably just Henry, bringing the car around now that he's done his initial sweep of the root cellar. Whatever he's found must be grim at best, and maybe he needs some time alone to work it out. But she comes to with a start when she remembers that Henry never drives.

 _Henry_.

Jo doesn't realize she's said it aloud until Hanson chimes in over the line. "What? Jo, what's up?"

When she doesn't answer, can't, he asks, "Did the Doc get himself in trouble again?"

Thoughts racing, she says only, "I gotta go, Mike."

She drops the landline and races out the back door without another word, mind alight with fear and worry. Her legs carry her over the flat terrain faster than she'd ever thought possible, and she runs and runs and runs until she finds the cavernous mouth of the cellar in the blue glow of her flashlight.

Ready to start down the stairs and stop all of this before it can even begin, Jo freezes at the sound of a voice behind her. "Going somewhere, Detective?"

That's not Henry's voice. It doesn't belong to the sheriff, either. She whirls around to face it nonetheless, blood whirling and pulse pounding when she realizes something: it's almost familiar.

"Because you might want to hold off a minute." The owner of said voice steps out from the shadows and into the circle of light her flashlight allows. His skin looks drained of blood, as white as she's ever seen someone outside Lucas' supernatural flicks. She's listened to the impossible before, found it in Henry's voice and in his eyes when he spoke of Abe's mother. (She knows her name is Abigail, knows she must Henry's wife, but she's still working on processing all that.)

But this? This is another impossibility all together. Because Henry's therapist is stalking towards her with a predatory smile on his face, British lilt so absent from his voice, it's like he'd never had one to begin with.

"Yeah? And why's that?" Her hand hovers over her gun with each step he takes.

Therapist Guy doesn't hesitate to move dangerously close to her as he croons, "Because I know Henry's secret."

What? Betrayal and hurt knife through her chest and flicker across her face and linger in her chest, but she takes subtle steps toward the cellar nevertheless. "Who are you?"

"Oh, that's not important, dear." Jo tries hard to keep her reaction under control, has to quell the urge to shudder and recoil away as he draws even closer.

Low conversation filters through the vent of the cellar's grated ceiling, and her heart beats double time at the snippets she's able to discern. _You were Belinda Smoot's boyfriend_ … _you killed her...buried her_ …

And then, though she cannot hear it, she knows in her heart that the sheriff's readying his gun. Readying himself to shoot Henry.  _Before you kill me, I need to know…_

Every part of her is screaming to move, to react, to run into that cellar and save Henry's life. But she stands, frozen in place, as Therapist Guy nears closer still. "I can tell you, you know. Everything."

 _What happened to the nurse?_ Comes the sound of Henry's voice from the cellar.

There's a part of her that wants to know the whole story, that wants to know what goes in that head of Henry's. She wants to know where he disappears to in the space between her questions and his answers, wants to know what he sees when his gaze grows distant and heavy, like he bears the weight of a hundred lifetimes.

And she should've known, then. She should've known.

"I myself have the same condition. So Henry and I, we're not so different."

She's started down the stairs, now, and can only offer a whisper-hissed, " _What condition?_ " as to enter undetected.

"Ah, so he hasn't told you yet. Excellent." The amusement in his voice chills her to the bone. "Then this will be more fun."

After she's saved Henry from yet another certain death (the eighth in all the months they've known each other, because she's kept track) and detained their lead in the squad car, she heads back to the cottage to do a final sweep for evidence. Maybe the good sheriff left something the DA can use against him in court. Maybe they can find further proof that he's guilty of murdering their victim.

Those are the lies she feeds Henry, and those are the lies he seems to accept.

"Jo?" She meets his gaze as she lingers just beyond where the car lie, tilting her head in wordless question.

"I just wanted to say…" Henry pauses here, and in that pause, she hears a thousand unspoken words. "Do be careful."

She nods and gestures to her gun, back in its holster for the time being. Appeased, Henry visibly relaxes some, and she heads up to the house a moment later.

* * *

 _He's_  waiting for her, there. And the way he greets her is unnerving, to say the least, eyes gleaming with some dark emotion just beneath the surface.

"Ah, Detective! I was just starting to worry you wouldn't make it." He says it like they're old friends about to settle in for tea time or something. Hand hovering over her gun, she tries to offer him a smile. But there's something about this man that makes her skin crawl, more than just the fake accent and even faker therapist gig, and she cannot convince even herself that she wants to know Henry's secret this badly.

"I...uhm." His gaze is unnerving, and she looks away after a long moment. "Henry has a condition?"

"That he does, I'm afraid. Come now. Sit, sit." He gestures to the living room with a grand flourish, as though it's his space to entertain. As though it's his house they're standing in. Afraid for reasons she cannot name, she bends to his will and moves from the kitchen and into the living room, sitting on a couch that smells like flowered perfume and the ghosts of decades long past.

When he joins her in the living room, he's carrying a tray of tea and scones - as though they really are old friends and this meeting is simply long overdue. She accepts the tea for the same reason she followed his earlier instructions, and her mind goes foggy and sluggish some minutes after the drink works its way down her throat.

"What do you want to know about Henry, Detective?" He waits a moment to allow her time to think, and then says, with an amused air about him, "I can tell you anything and everything. I'm his oldest friend, you know."

His dark eyes gleam at that last line, and she thinks it some personal joke of his. Of theirs, maybe.

"I…I don't know." Henry will be worrying about her soon, and the thought warms her from the inside out. Or perhaps that's the tea. Everything's going a bit hazy, now, and his words don't quite make sense.

"You're his oldest friend? But I thought Abe was."

Therapist Guy gives something of a snort before he murmurs, "No, no. I can assure you, Abraham isn't his oldest friend. They aren't really friends at all, those two."

Something about that, too, has her reeling. "They aren't? But how is that possible?"

"There's much you don't know, Detective. So, so much." He smiles at her as her vision whirls, tunnels. "You can call me Adam, by the way."

"Adam." She echoes, and can't help but wonder when forming sentences got  _so bloody difficult._ Her mouth feels like it's been stuffed with cotton and then filled with peanut butter. She's always hated peanut butter. "Is Henry…is Henry-"

Adam's smile slips from his face but lingers in his voice when he asks, "Is everything alright, Detective?"

Jo nods and tries again. "Just uhm…need a moment."

Her thoughts are slow to connect and even slower to form into the words that make up a sentence. So she's distantly proud of herself when she manages a slurred but coherent, "Is he okay, Adam? I need to know that he's-"

The cup of tea she cradles between her hands slips through her fingers as her speech falters, fades. She falls limp to her side on the sofa as the cup meets the hardwood, the tea it contains pooling in the dips on the floor. The old woman from earlier in the day (Maude? Mauve? She's not sure which, anymore) moves down the stairs, then, and Adam looks almost pained as he regards her.

"What in the world is going on here?" The old woman asks as her gaze flickers between the two of them.

A sigh works its way through Adam's lips as he gets up from his perch on the couch opposite Jo. "This would've been so much easier if everyone had just played their parts right.  _Must_  I do everything myself?"

He sounds much like a theater director whose patience has been worked into a thin, taut line. And Jo looks on in horror as he procures a gun from some hidden pocket of his jacket, one Maude doesn't see. Its metal body glints golden in the light of the room as Adam takes a step toward the old woman, and Jo would scream if only she could get enough air in her lungs.

"No!" She pushes the word up and out of her throat.

Adam whirls around to face her, then, dark eyes just as flat and soulless as when she'd first entered the cottage. An emotion she can't place lurks just beneath the surface as he pulls out a knife from another hidden place she cannot see, and she is frozen, frozen, frozen. His every movement is predatory and almost inhuman as he stalks over to her as she lay immobile on the couch. Though he murmurs that he really doesn't want to do this, he doesn't look sorry as he leans close to her face.

And in the space between one hard, wild beat of her heart and the next, she knows that Adam must be lying. He doesn't know anything more about Henry than she does, must not, because it just _doesn't make sense_. Why would Henry share the secrets of his heart and mind with the soulless man before her? Why would he trust Adam more than her?  _How_  could he trust Adam more than her? Unless…unless maybe he  _hadn't._ Unless maybe Adam had forced the truth out of him. But how? What's the  _one_ thing he could hold over Henry's head? It's on the tip of her tongue, the edge of her conscious, but she cannot find it in the thick, syrupy mess of her thoughts.

"Why did he tell you and not-"

"And not you?" Adam finishes, echoing her unspoken thought as amusement glimmers in his eyes. They're deep and dark and frighteningly  _empty_. "Do you think you're special to him? That you hold even the barest hint of meaning to him?"

"I think that I'm…that he-" She cannot call up the words, doesn't want to say them here. For if she says them here, to this madman with a glinting, glinting knife and empty, empty eyes, she will never be able to bring them up from the back of her throat again. She will never be able to ask about Paris or be brave enough, bold enough, to say that she already gets lost with Henry everyday. That everyday, in quiet moments between heartbeats, they slip into a space unto their own. A space where they don't need sunlit streets and cozy cafes, only each other. And she tells Adam none of this, not a word.

But somehow, he knows. He gives a mad, mad grin as he presses the edge of the blade to her cheek and  _he knows._ "He doesn't care about you, Detective. He doesn't care about anything, really. He lives to die, did you know that?"

She's always suspected, always feared that being the case. But she's never really thought...

He takes her silence as answer enough and moves the blade from one side of her face to the other, as if deciding where to make his first mark. As if deciding where to make her bleed. She tries to move, tries to recoil, tries to  _get away_ , but her limbs are slow to cooperate. And her head…her head's thick and thoughts slow, sticky. "But he's got all the time in the world for that. You, though?"

"I think your time'll be up far sooner than his." His eyes hold hers as he drags the knife across the length of her upper arm, hard and deep enough to draw blood.

Her shirt darkens in an instant, stained red, red, red (and she realizes then that she doesn't remember taking off her coat) before she's engulfed by a fierce and sudden wave of pain that has her mouth twisting in a thin line and her eyes shutting tight.

"Oh, if only Henry could see your face right now…"

 _Henry_.

She summons up the dregs of her strength, every last ounce of her energy, and sucks in a harsh breath before letting out one long, unending scream.

As the world goes still and dark around her, she hopes and prays to the ghost of her childhood religion that Henry's heard her cry as he waits in the car out by the road. If nothing else, she wants that much to be true - because she needs him now more than ever.

* * *

" _So, what do you say, Detective?" Henry asks as he leans against the terrace railing, city lights glimmering and blurring behind him. He gives her a crooked grin that has her heart pulsing hard in her chest as he adds, "Would you like to take a trip with me?"_

" _To Paris?" She murmurs as she takes a step forward, and then another, until she's close enough to stand in the circle of his arms._

_He nods in answer, crooked grin widening all the more as he leans ever closer, words kissing the shell of her ear when he says, "To Paris, Rome, anywhere in the world. As long as you're content with getting lost, of course."_

_"Getting lost?" Jo echoes in a voice that mirrors his own, low and warm and dangerously soft as she pulls away and says, "Anytime, as long as it's with you."_

The delusion falls away from her after that, and she comes to, then, to Henry murmuring, "no, no! Please no, not today!" in a low, broken voice. Still keyed up on adrenaline and the smallest hint of fear from her encounter with Adam, she marvels at the fact that Henry could even consider her half as important as his perfect wife's memory. And somehow, in the haze of delirium, the thought of Abigail as Abe's mother and Henry's wife makes sense. Maybe not total sense, no, but some. But so too, do Adam's cryptic words about time. He'd told her Henry had all the time in the world…but he'd also said her partner lived to die. How can that be true? _Is_  that true? She doesn't know, but she's worried it is.

By the time Jo wakes up all the way, Adam is long gone and the landlady (Maude, she knows now,) is in shock. Hanson arrives on the scene with backup soon enough: two cruisers and what looks like a tiny fleet of ambulances. He gives an apologetic duck of his head and mutters that he didn't know if Henry needed one too. But Henry's fine. He gives her some space as she tells Hanson her witness statement, describing Adam as best as she remembers.

He takes it all down without a word, and when he's done, he meets her eyes and murmurs, "You good?"

She nods, then, says that she's good. Her head's still swimming with questions she can't answer, doesn't want to answer, but she's good. "Can I see him?"

"How'd I know ya were gonna ask that?" Hanson asks around a smile, to which Jo rewards him with a swift punch to the arm. His smile only widens at the blow, though.

They walk over to the ambulance together in comfortable silence, his hand at the small of her back to keep her steady. And not once does she falter. As they draw closer and closer to the flashing lights of the ambulance, Mike leans close so as not to be heard and says, "Doc was real worried about ya, y'know. Think it's 'cause he's sweet on you."

Sweet on her. Though her mind's a haze and her thoughts are like syrup, she knows what that means. It takes a moment, but she knows.

"Wait, he's what?"

She's heard the impossible before. Seen it, even. But this particular impossibility makes her head whirl and her heart race for reasons that have nothing to do with panic, fear. And in that moment, she thinks she might love Henry. Really love him. And for a moment, just one, she allows herself to consider not the impossible thought of him living forever, but the impossible thought of him loving her too.

Wonder whispers through her voice as she asks again, "Henry's what on me?"

Hanson just grins at her and shakes his head. "Oh, no. I ain't gettin' into this one, Jo. This is between you and the Doc."

Dammit. She just  _knew_  Mike was gonna say that, the predictable bastard. He's always saying that, much like Henry's always saying  _this man was murdered!_  in that perfect British lilt of his.

Wait.

 _Henry_. Her thoughts spin and reel with a hundred thousand scenarios, a hundred thousand things that could've happened to him in that house with Adam. All of them, ending in blood, blood, blood she cannot stop from flowing as Adam watches from the shadows, grinning.

She pushes those thoughts away and asks, "And you're sure he's okay?" for the third time in about as many minutes.

Mike just grins and shakes his head again as he hands her off to the team of waiting EMTs, muttering that yes, he's sure, Henry's fine. A paramedic with Sean's eyes assesses her in the back of the ambulance while Maude gets looked over in another, and she doesn't understand how Henry's fine. He's worried for her, worried, worried, worried, but he doesn't have as much as a scratch on himself. In her delirium, she won't allow him to leave her side, and he seems loathe to do so even for a moment.

"I'm right with you, Jo. I'm here."

She squeezes his hand tight in her own as if to prove it, tugging him close to her. There he stays as she's cleaned up, bandaged, and given a blanket, and it's only when she moves to take the scratchy material that she realizes her free hand is shaking. Both hands are, really, but it's harder to tell with Henry's fingers curled tight around hers.

Huh. She'd almost forgot what going into shock feels like, but here she is near falling apart beside her best friend. And with her head against his shoulder and his hand at the small of her back, she can almost trick herself into thinking that it's all going to be okay. That he's going to let her in, tell her his story, and that she's going to believe him. But even now, she's petrified that she won't believe him, that she'll lose him to this long story and the deep, dark places in his head he permits no one to access.

The paramedic with soft eyes gives her instructions to go home, get some rest, and stay hydrated. And she tries so hard to listen, to pay attention, but all she wants is to sleep. To sleep and sleep and sleep, wake to the blare of her alarm or the ring of her phone. Death calling, like on any other morning of her life. But she cannot sleep, won't let herself, so she focuses in on the paramedic once more. He tells her that the drug Adam slipped into her tea should fade from her system by the time she wakes in the morning. Reece calls Hanson, then, who in turn tells Jo that she's got the next few days off is she wants to take them.

And she's about to tell him no, that she's good, that she can handle it, when Hanson cracks a smile and says it's not up for debate. She turns to Henry for support but he, too, agrees that she should take some time off work (and she almost thinks she needs it, because she's starting to wonder if his accent's as real and perfect as it sounds). By the time the three of them arrive at the station, she's managed to push some of the shock well enough away to do her job, and Reece wants (and politely demands) some filling in on what they've discovered. The pair does so with ease, but the Lieutenant's attention doesn't stray from Jo's wellbeing even after hearing news of Henry nearly getting shot during their investigation.

As if sensing that Jo's not ready to give in yet, Reece says, "No one with a  _badge_  goes near that man. Have I made myself clear?",leaving Henry to interrogate their less-than-happy suspect as she watches from the sidelines. Reece allows her at least that.

So she tries to be content with watching from afar, but her concentration's very much slipping away from her as her eyes move over Henry's form. She brings herself to snap out of it and pay attention - she has a report to complete, a case to close, and a drink to nurse once this is all said and done. And she'll be damned if she lets this feeling of… _whatever this is she feels for Henry_  to get in the way of doing her job (though she knows that she doesn't technically have much of a job to do here for the next few days, she's willing to swallow her own lie to keep her mind focused. And she knows he's lied to her, too, lied to her just like Adam's lied to all of them.)

* * *

"Let me tell you what I think happened on the night of April 7th, 1985." Henry starts before settling into the provided metal chair. "You showed up to the ER with a hit and run victim. What you didn't expect to find there…was your girlfriend."

There's a moment where she thinks of him saying that word, "girlfriend", in a different context, to a hundred perfect women in a hundred perfect cities, fooling them all with his nineteenth-century charm and soft British lilt. And again, she has to wonder if his is just as fake as Adam's. She shudders at the thought and tries her best to push it down and away.

The sheriff recounts what happened that night with minimal prompting from Henry, who leans across the table to murmur, in that low, even lilt of his, "Tell me…" His voice sounds a touch unhinged, now, and Jo knows what he's about to ask without him even having to say it. So she doesn't know why a stab of jealousy knifes through her at the reverence in his voice when he asks about the nurse, when he asks about Abe's mother and his wife.

But if she's being honest with herself, she knows why. Because she can think of every soft glance they've ever exchanged, every conversation that took place with not a single spoken word between them. She can call up memories of his fingers not so accidentally brushing hers under the table at the bar, or her hand almost but not  _quite_  purposefully skimming along his forearm in the darkness of the theatre. She can think back to heated discussions on which Harry Potter houses their friends belonged to, and lazy midnight walks on the beach when only the water knew of what they said and did. And most importantly, she can remember with vivid and certain detail the way he'd wrapped his arm around her shoulder as she cried long into the night. It'd been the anniversary of Sean's death, then, and try as she might, she hadn't been able to stop herself from smiling some as a growing storm brought on a flurry of snow. A flurry of snow that'd later turned into a foot, and a foot, two.

He hadn't hesitated to be there for her, even in the dark and in the cold. Henry knows the truth of her. But she doesn't know the truth of him - and Abigail? Abigail does. She knows if his accent's real, knows how he takes his tea, knows the secrets he keeps and the scars he hides beneath layers and layers of clothing that whisper of another century. And she knows Abe in a way Jo herself cannot, knows Henry in a way she never will. Because Henry chose to trust Abigail. But not her…never her.

"I knocked, and waited 'til she was gone, and then…I buried Belinda." That sounds like a confession if she's ever heard one, simple and to the point.

Now, if only the man seated across the sheriff could just be so simple and to the point.

But she supposes that if he was…if he was, she would've gone off to Paris with Isaac. She would've gone to Paris with Isaac and not held a care in the world for the M.E. she was leaving behind. For she likes simple and to the point, and she'd liked Isaac's honest and easy nature. But always, there'd been a whisper-soft voice at the back of her head reminding her that for all she liked simple and to the point, she liked complication and mystery all the more. So here she is, trying and failing to work out the mystery of Henry's life.

He and the sheriff talk for a while longer, but it's mostly just Henry trying to test a theory aloud. The sheriff humors him, answering a few questions even though they don't seem to pertain to his case. Jo knows they don't, but she listens anyway, cannot bear not to.

"Surely, the landlady would've seen her drive in the other direction, unless…"

She comes to the same realization that Henry does and leaves the observation room in a flash. He's right behind her, and Reece follows the two back to Jo's desk before giving them a stern, hard look.

"Five minutes, you two." The way she says, "I mean it" reminds Jo of her mother for a moment, and the thought's almost enough to bring a smile to her face. Almost, because she knows damn well her mother would've spotted Henry's lie from the minute they'd met. Reece hadn't. Hell, even Jo herself hadn't.

But she still manages to talk Reece into allowing her a few more hours on the case, just a few more, at which point she will respectfully back down and take those days off. Reece agrees, but with one condition: that she is to check in with Henry or Hanson if she feels something is even the slightest bit off.

The Lieutenant then disappears back into her office, leaving Henry and Jo to lean close together as they look to the Detective's computer screen. The shiver that rolls down her spine isn't as warm as usual; no, it's cold with the sudden realization that she doesn't really know the man next to her at all.

* * *

The sky is low and gray with storm clouds by the time they set out for Abe's mother's final resting place (and she knows her name's Abigail, knows she's Henry wife, but she isn't ready to deal with that revelation right now). Henry's the first one out of the cruiser, moving out of his seat and towards the woods well before they've even fully stopped. All is hushed as the search continues. But what they're looking for, they don't really know. Only he does, and he won't tell even her. How can they be partners on this case, on  _any_  case, when he won't tell her a damned thing?

Hurt whispers through her at the thought - because he really doesn't trust her, does he?

They're standing a ways from each other when she hears it, just a whisper on the wind: Henry's low, broken voice as he murmurs, "Oh no…" and skids down the ravine.

"What is it? Hold on a second, Henry." But he's already gone to her, running through a curtain of underbrush and dead, fallen leaves as he makes his way towards a car's wreckage. A car…but what would it be doing way out-

Oh.  _Oh_. This is  _the_  car, Abigail's car, which means this is the place.

She can almost see his mind go to that other place, then, gaze distant for a long moment. And she wonders if he  _sees_ his perfect wife before his eyes. If he relives a memory he holds so close to his heart, not even she is privy to what it is. When he comes to, gaze returning, it's to rush forth and start digging at a pile of moss and rotted leaves close by. A Tarrytown cop moves to intervene, to stop him from disturbing evidence, perhaps, but she holds up a hand to stop him.

"Wait." She knows only how it felt to hear news of Sean's death over the phone, at four in the morning, when she'd been barely awake enough to remember what day of the week it was. And though it's clear that she doesn't really know her partner, doesn't really know her friend, she cannot even imagine the emotions that must be eating away at Henry's heart and soul now, down in that ravine. But he deserves that space to himself. Even after everything, he deserves that space. "Give him a second."

Whatever he finds in the dirt is exactly what he hadn't wanted to see, exactly what he hadn't told her he'd been looking for. Confirming a loved one's passing hurts more the second time, she decides, because the love and pain and unfairness of it all slice open the wound death leaves anew. She takes a shuddering breath at the look of sheer agony, of desolation, that sits plain on Henry's face as he looks to the water beyond the trees, the leaves covering the forest floor, at anything but what he cradles between his hands. And then she can stand it no longer, turning away with a sharp twist of her heels to give him that second. That moment alone.

It's then that she knows he wasn't lying about Abigail being his wife. How that could be, she doesn't know, but she files it away in the back of her mind for the time being. He could be lying about everything. She knows it damned well. But right now, Henry doesn't need questions about the life he's lived or the people he's spent it with. That'll come later.

Right now, Henry needs a friend to confide in, to share in his pain. And Jo tells him as much when they return to the precinct that afternoon.

Her hand falls to his forearm as they stand together in the lobby, with her adding, "Maybe not right now, maybe not right this second, but when you're ready…"

She's struck, then, by the number of times they've said that same phrase to each other over the last few months. And she pushes away the thought of how many times he's said it when it could be untrue. "When you're ready, Henry, I will be that friend."

Jo's hand moves to wrap around Henry's own, then, giving his fingers a squeeze. He returns the squeeze and gives her a soft smile, though his red-rimmed eyes belie his attempt at normalcy when he murmurs, "Thank you, Jo."

"Anytime." If this were any other time, she'd be momentarily consumed by the soft note in his voice when he says her name. If this were any other time, she'd linger on the haunted look in his eyes and the way he doesn't pull away from her. If this were any other time, she'd wonder if maybe someday, they could meet in the middle and divorce the ghosts they're still very much married to.

But this isn't any other time. Because any other time, her thoughts wouldn't race with the possibility that  _she doesn't really know him_.

"I'll meet you downstairs, then?"

He nods and turns away to the elevators without a word. She's glad for the silence, glad for the space, and lets him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, we return to Henry's head as he gives his final report on Abigail, demands answers from Adam, and offers to tell Jo his secret.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Jo…are you quite alright?” He’s rarely one to address her by name, but worry drowns out manners and titles as he moves to meet her halfway. She doesn’t look quite alright; no, far from it. His thoughts race this way and that, head filling with reasons she could seem so unhinged. He knows she’s unwell the moment his hand finds her own - for her fingers are cold and trembling. And he knows something’s wrong, irrevocably wrong, when she wrenches her hand clean out of his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where Henry grieves over a love lost to death and fears he's losing another one to a lie. 
> 
> Tw for brief mentions of blood. If you know you can't handle that, then you do you and skip right over them.

* * *

“Henry, we don’t have to do this right now if you don’t want to,” Comes the sound of Jo’s voice as she steps into the room, footfalls near soundless on the tile floor.

Gaze holding hers for a long moment, Henry gives her a grateful half-smile before turning away. Yes, he decides, Abigail definitely would’ve liked her. He takes a deep breath of air, taking comfort in the familiar smell of antiseptic and bleach, before he begins his final analysis. On Abigail.

“Remains of a Jane Doe. Aged sixty-five to seventy five, cause of death…” A rueful smile sits on his lips, and he finishes his sentence with a soft, quiet, “Fractured sternum.”

Henry moves to stand left of the examining slab, trying hard to separate himself from the reality of what’s before him. He doesn’t wish to pretend her alive when really, he’d known her dead decades ago. No, he just doesn’t know how to talk about death when the one it affects is the love of his life. He really and truly doesn’t know.

But he soldiers on nonetheless, delivering the rest of his analysis in a voice that sounds much like he’s come down with a cold. He tells himself that that’s all this is, a cold. (A cold of the heart and mind.)

“A cut through her lingual bone suggests our victim’s throat was cut when she was…” Henry concentrates on the feel of the floor beneath his feet and the cool metal of the slab beneath his latex-gloved hands, tries to ground himself to the present so his next words won’t bloody  _hurt so much._ “When she was thrown through the windshield, resulting in massive blood loss.”

Lucas clears his throat, and Henry looks up to regard him. “You uh…disagree with my assessment?”

He almost smiles for a moment, proud that his assistant’s willing to challenge him even now.

“I’m sorry but uh, with all due respect,” Lucas nods his head at Abigail’s remains laid out before them. “It appears that the victim’s ribcage is broken. Probably with something small and soft…a hand, maybe.”

“What are you saying?”

“Well, the sheriff did say someone was in the car with Abraham’s mother,” Jo offers, and he thinks he could wince at the soft, gentle note in her tone. He wants to insist that he can take this, that he’s more than capable of handling it, but he knows as well as she does that that’d be a damned lie.

His assistant wonders aloud if their mystery man resuscitated her, adding that, "The break is consistent with chest compressions.”

As if he doesn’t know what the break’s consistent of, as if he cannot see.

But it just  _doesn’t make sense_. Henry’s mind races with theories as he tries to think up an explanation that  _makes_  the truth of Abigail’s bones, the truth of her last final moments, make sense. He can think of nothing. “But he kidnapped her, forced her off the road…”

And even worse, he can feel himself growing the slightest touch hysterical as his words begin to run together. “Why…why would he save her? Why would he bother, after all that?”

Lucas gives him a look somewhere between impatience and sorrow when he turns to meet his gaze and says, “Because the cut to her throat was not made by the windshield.”

Henry glances to the cut, unbelieving. 

“Look at the hyoid closer, under magnification.”

Following Lucas’ instruction, he moves to study the bone under an old magnifying glass. “I’m sorry, Henry, but the cut was made by-“

“By a knife,” Comes the sound of his own voice, whisper-soft and small. But even as Henry’s calm composure slips away and shatters to the floor at his feet, he nods toward his assistant and says, “Very good, Lucas” around the ghost of a smile.

“I learned from the best,” Lucas says in way of thank you before handing Henry a file. “Which is why, it’s my professional opinion that due to the angle of the cut, Abe’s mother slit her own throat.”

An earlier conversation with Jo melds with an awful memory of Abigail, forever stained with her blood and his own unending screams. He blinks both away, rapid and hard, as he regards Lucas once more. “What?”

It takes only an instant for his mind to catch up, and his gaze goes unseeing as he murmurs, “Are you saying that she crashed, was ejected from the car, resuscitated only to then take her own life?”

He comes back to himself in time to see Jo close her eyes a moment, and he wonders if she too, has just imagined the scene he’s laid out before them. “Why would somebody do that?”

With a sick, churning feeling in the pit of his stomach, Henry whispers, “to get away from someone” in muted horror. Both look to him in concern as he leaves, out the door and down the hall without another word. 

* * *

Henry takes a deep breath to try and keep it together as he strides up the stairs to the loft apartment. He knows he doesn’t truly  _need_  to keep it together in front of Abraham, but he also knows that if he’s to start crying, then so too will his son. And whereas Henry wants to discuss his theories with Abe almost as soon as he arrives home, Abe insists on getting some food into him before they talk about the case any further. When there’s no more food to speak of left on their plates or in the deep dish serving pan, Abe relents and follows Henry into the living room.

They confirm what they already know about the case, with Henry recounting leads that didn’t pan out. He knows there’s got to be a key to solving this case, knows there’s one final piece of the puzzle they’ve yet to uncover. With Abe’s prompting, he arrives at a breakthrough as he paces the length of the living room’s hardwood. The motorcyclist.

“Yes…he’s the one that ties everyone together. Everything that happened on the night of April 7th, 1985 is predicated on him. Who was he?”

Henry scrambles to the dining room table for Abigail’s notes on the hit and run victim. The injuries sustained are surely unsurvivable (except of course, for his own damned immortal soul), and he can’t help but wonder aloud, “If these injuries were indeed fatal, then where’s his death certificate?"

Henry reads on further, Abigail’s written words across the page giving him little comfort as he echoes her notes. “She approximated the unknown patient to be in his thirties, described the John Doe as having dark hair…”

He trails off with a sickening realization, leaving his sentence hanging there as Abe leans forward on the couch, asking, “What is it, Henry?”

His breath leaves him in a defeated rush; because he knows of only one person who would be able to survive such a traumatic accident. “I need a moment alone, Abe.”

Abe, to his credit, tries to shake him out of the dark thoughts that’ve gripped hold of his mind. But Henry snaps at him, muttering, “A moment!”

Then, quieter: “please.”

Once Abe’s retreated from the living room, Henry picks up the phone and dials a number he’d hoped he’d never have to.

_“Hello, Henry. I suppose this means you’ve finally figured it out.”_

If he could go through the phone and strangle this man, he thinks he would. Yet even as his cool composure, calm facade, and even unrelenting madness all slip away, he knows that he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. But exhaustion and grief leave him angry, and in the heat of it, he grits his teeth and murmurs low into the phone, “You killed her.”

“You killed Abigail, you son of a bitch.” His every word’s enunciated, now, hand that holds the rotary phone trembling.

_“If you want to know what happened that night she died, let me start at the beginning.”_

He’s struck then, by the thought of Jo dying. Of blood and blood and  _blood_ he cannot stop from flowing, and he’s near to tears when the thought melds with the reality of Abigail dying.

Though Henry says nothing to Adam, he tells him the story nonetheless. And after he’s exhausted every detail, told him every agonizing second of that night, Henry only has one more question for him.

“How did she die?”

He tells him that, too, and then says,  _“I know you must think that I’m a monster, Henry. But I tried to save her.”_

Henry can almost  _hear_ the way Abigail’s ribs must have cracked and fractured beneath Adam’s untrained hands, and he is beyond words for a long while. Beyond movement. Beyond anything.

_“Thirty years she set me back, but I found you…on my own."_

He doesn’t truly hear Adam, then, doesn’t really care to know what the man says, and merely marvels at the fact that Abigail died trying to protect him. (Henry, who’s lied and lied to countless faces and deceived everyone he’s ever known to preserve this wretched secret of his - Abigail died to protect that secret, to protect _him_ , from Adam. She  _died_.)

_“What can I say, Henry? A good woman is hard to find.”_

His thoughts reel with sudden understanding.

“Where are you? Because if you so much as _think_  of going near Jo, then I promise you, you will live to regret it.”

Adam disconnects the call, then, the line going dead and still.

In the next minute and a half, Henry calls Hanson and checks, double-checks, and triple-checks that Jo is indeed okay. Mike lets him know that she left work a good three hours ago, and that she’s probably curled up on her couch for the night. He thanks Hanson for the reassurance and bids him goodnight to try and avoid the question he knows is coming.

“You gonna tell her soon, Doc?”

Dammit, he’d lingered on the line a touch too long.

“I don’t quite know what you’re referring to. That I…?” Henry’s not brave enough, exhausted enough, to say the words aloud. But Hanson knows they’re there, knows what they are.

“Yeah. And the other thing, whatever you two are having it out about.” He murmurs that he should just tell her. That whatever he’s keeping from her isn’t worth losing what they have. A pleasant shiver runs down his back at the thought of them  _having_ something, at them  _being_ something, and he thanks Hanson for the advice before the two really hang up.

Henry allows himself to wallow on the couch for some time after that. How much times passes, he doesn’t know. It could be five minutes, it could be five hours. His thoughts flit from one thing to the next, but always, they settle on Abigail. A dark-haired Detective with warm eyes and a soft smile creeps into his thoughts, too, follows him down into the depths of his dreams as he finally nods off into sleep.

* * *

He awakes to the sound of a knock at the door, but he’s not sure if it’s an echo from his dreams or a summons from the waking world. He hears the distant sound of Abe’s voice a good moment later, and his stomach dips and warms at who replies in answer.

_Jo._

He almost doesn’t believe it and briefly wonders if he’s gone well and truly mad with sleep deprivation and the crushing, unending weight of grief. It wouldn’t surprise him - but not much in this life does, anymore.

“Henry?” She asks as she bounds up the stairs and into the living room. Her hair is crowned in a flurry of snow crystals that melt as she stands there, motionless before him. Abe excuses himself to the rooftop terrace to give them some privacy, and Henry's gaze meets hers from across the room. Relief creeps into her voice when she says his name a second time. And for a moment, she looks like for all the world, she’d been expecting to find someone else in his place.

“Jo…are you quite alright?” He’s rarely one to address her by name, but worry drowns out manners and titles as he moves to meet her halfway. She doesn’t look quite alright; no, far from it. His thoughts race this way and that, head filling with reasons she could seem so unhinged. He knows she’s unwell the moment his hand finds her own - for her fingers are cold and trembling. And he knows something’s wrong, irrevocably wrong, when she wrenches her hand clean out of his.

“Why? That’s all I wanna know.” Her voice sounds as hard as her fingers feel cold, and he’s struck then by how often history repeats itself. Because Abigail had once looked at him with the same raw emotion in her eyes, all fire and brimstone and _anger._ But Jo is a force all her own, and the distant memory of Abigail’s anger is nothing compared to the sheer heat and hurt and  _betrayal_  in her eyes.

“We were partners, Henry. Maybe not officially but we were  _partners._ ” Her use of the past tense isn’t lost on him, and he moves to say something, anything, to fix the growing chasm forming between them - but his voice is lost, drowned, to the overwhelming wave of fear that he’s losing her now, once and for all.

She seems to accept his silence and moves closer, voice whisper soft as she murmurs, “I wanted to be that friend, y'know. I wanted to be that friend you confided in, wanted to be that friend that said they understood your pain, shared in it. Because I do. And you know that. But I don’t even know how long you’ve lived in the City. Or where you lived before that. Hell, Henry, I don’t even know if your accent’s real.”

He nods, then, reaching for her. “I wanted to tell you everything, but I just…”

“You just what, Henry?” Jo asks as she steps away from his outstretched hand to stride into the kitchen. She picks up his champagne flute from off the counter, then, twirling the stem between two fingers as a smile ghosts over her lips. “Were you too busy celebrating another brilliantly told lie? Because it was brilliant, really.”

Shame knifes through him when he realizes that he doesn’t quite know which lie she’s referring to, but she gives him no room to ask as she continues on.

"And I wanted to be that friend for you so intensely, so wholly, I almost didn’t see through it. But see, I wanted to be more, too.”

 _More_. Underneath all her heat and hurt and betrayal, there’s a soft note in her voice, and Henry can feel something inside him unraveling again. He thinks it’s his resolve to tell her: about Abigail, about his life, his curse, his blooming feelings for her. About all of it. Because they can’t be more if he doesn’t tell her. They can’t be much of _anything_ if he doesn’t tell her. And in that moment, he knows that she could broadcast his secret to the whole precinct. The whole city.  _The whole entire world_  if she wished to, and he wouldn’t give a damn if it meant that she’d still speak to him with even a hint of that soft note in her voice.

When he doesn’t answer, can’t, is too overwhelmed by the thought of them, of whatever they are, being in the past, she looks him right in the eyes and asks, “What am I to you?"

 _To you_  echoes in his ears for the second time in as many days, and his pulse beats hard and fast as he looks into the depths of her eyes. Though they gleam low and dark as always, they’ve frosted over with a layer of ice again. It’d been thin, before, easily breakable with another well-told lie. But he hadn’t wanted to lie to her in his cell, then, and he doesn’t,  _can’t_ , bear the thought of lying to her now. Because lying to her now could spell the end of all they have and all they could be. And he cannot face that reality, not now or ever.

So Henry Morgan looks into Jo's dark, wild eyes and says, without fanfare, “You’re my friend. My partner. And someone I…” He pauses here, and in that pause, hopes against all hope she hears the word he doesn’t dare say. Love. “Someone I care very deeply about. Someone I cherish.”

“But not enough to trust, huh?” She takes a long sip of his drink as she leans against the counter, a humorless smile touching her lips once more. “Not like Abigail. She knew, didn’t she?”

He winces at the bitter edge in her voice and moves to take a step closer. “Jo, please, I never meant to imply-"

She holds up a hand to quiet him, and he falls silent as he awaits her next words. “I wasn’t finished yet, Henry.”

“Because here’s what you’ve been to me.” He finds himself holding his breath as he takes a single step forward, towards her, and she allows him that much. “You are someone who has frustrated me and confused me and made me look at life in a different way. You’ve opened up a door to a world of possibility where everything isn’t as neat and tidy as I’d always thought. Where cases don’t have the ending I anticipate, where people aren’t so predictable. Where life is  _new_ and complex and worth the hurt. Because there’s also wonder. Joy. Love."

For a moment there, he can’t remember how to breathe as the word, “love” falls from her lips.

"And for a while there…"

“For a while there?” He echoes as he dares take another step closer to her, marveling at how much weight her words hold over him. Just a year ago, he never would’ve thought  _anyone’s_ words could affect him like this, could leave him with a dizzy head, held breath, and a thundering, stuttering pulse. But her words do. Oh, how hers do.

“For a while there, Henry, you opened up a door to a world where _this_ was possible.” And Jo, too, moves forward, a hand tugging his own over her heart. It beats just as hard and fast as his, if not even faster, and there’s a dizzying moment where he thinks she’s going to kiss him. Kiss him or punch him. He doesn’t thinks he deserves the former, really. But the latter? Much deserved, in his mind.

She does neither, though, and he has to wonder if it’s from sheer force of will (though he also worries it’s because of her use of past tense again. Past tense, past feelings). But her voice sounds the way the softest of kisses feels (and he thinks he could drown in it, in her, but it’s a good drowning) when she finally murmurs, “Because most importantly, you have made me feel again. And for that, I will always be grateful.”

Henry’s had much time to perfect his response on many a topic, but he cannot, for the life of him, come up with any semblance of a perfect answer, now. 

“I’ve made you what?” He asks in a low, breathless whisper when thoughts and speech finally connect. He's afraid that if he speaks any louder, she’ll take it all back. He’s afraid that if he speaks any louder, what she’s just told him will cease to be true.

“You’ve made me feel again, Henry.”

“As though you haven’t returned the favor, Detective?” He murmurs in reply as he grows nearer to her still, half-smile curving his lips as they stand together in the low light of the kitchen. He’s close enough to reach out and touch her, to ghost his fingers over hers as he tugs the empty champagne flute out of her hand. But he thinks better of doing either and refrains - she’s allowed him to step into his personal space even now, and he’s trying not to give her reason to go back on that unspoken decision.

“Don’t try changing the subject.” Her words kiss the stubbled line of his jaw as she leans forward to meet him. When she pulls away a long moment later, it’s to murmur, “You have no self preservation instincts. No restraint. And no regard for your own safety.”

"I don’t know how many times you’ve done this. How many times you’ve tried charming me, distracting me, so I don’t ask the right questions.” She shakes her head, then, murmurs, “I don’t know how many times you’ve leaned close to me, into me, just to tell me things it’d take a lifetime to learn.” A smile curves her lips as she asks, whisper-soft, "But you’ve had at least that long, haven’t you?”

And because he cannot lie to her any longer, because he cannot keep the truth from her when his heart thunders with a second one, he murmurs, “Yes. Yes, Jo, I have."

He can give her that, at least. 

"I don’t know if you’ve done this before, but I imagine you must've. To a hundred other women in a hundred other cities over the last hundred years. And I don’t know how that’s possible, Henry.”

How he wishes he could say the same, how he wishes he could tell her that he, too, has no idea how this could be. But he does know. Or at least, he knows enough. He knows a curse of unending youth, knows sleepless nights, knows he runs in the other direction when he starts developing real feelings for someone. He knows pain, knows death, knows poison and drowning and unending, scorching flames. He knows love, knows loss, knows agony and fear and unending, crushing loneliness. He knows hurt and truth and bone-deep empathy. 

He knows much and remembers even more. Most of all, though, he knows the dead. He knows the dead in their graves all around the world and he knows the dead in their cold chambers at the morgue. He knows the ghosts of his past, too, especially the ghost of the woman he loved for a lifetime. He knows her well, for she lingers in his head and haunts his memory.

He certainly doesn’t know all. But he knows enough. 

He knows that if he roots himself too deeply in the past, he’ll miss what’s right in front of him. And he knows that he doesn’t want to miss Jo Martinez and the adventure they could be, knows it down to the very bones of him. Whether friend, partner, or a touch of something more, he knows he doesn’t want to miss what’s to come if she plays even the smallest part in it.

So Henry Morgan looks into her dark eyes and says, without fanfare, “Would you like to?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd apologize for ending the chapter on a cliffhanger, but I'm a sucker for suspense. Unlike our beloved show, though, the story doesn't end here!
> 
> Next up, you can expect Jo's answer, Henry's hot cocoa, and a whispered "just once" between them. Mortinez shippers, I'm warning you now, you're probably gonna scream.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He takes a deep breath and tries to summon even an ounce of the man he was at the war’s end. That Henry would know what to do, he would have the right words. But time hasn’t given him the right words, or even better words, and he’s learned long ago that sometimes, in love, there aren’t any. So he swallows a twinge of fear and meets Jo’s gaze head on, murmuring, “I was a hundred and sixty six years old, then, Jo."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where Henry makes hot cocoa, agrees to Jo's whispered "just once", and then, at her prompting, tells her about the love of his very long life.
> 
> Between here and FF.net, I've received just about three thousand views on this fic. I'm absolutely humbled, and so, so happy to be a part of a fandom as supportive and encouraging as all of you are.
> 
> So thank you, and I hope you enjoy what's to come!

* * *

And in the space between his question and her answer, he knows that he’s developed real and true feelings for her. Feelings that won’t ebb after he chooses another city to run to, boards another flight in the dead of night, and starts another life as winter melts into spring.

But he wants to be here for spring. He tells her that much, words tumbling out of his mouth as she moves to the living room and he follows a ways behind her. They sit on the couch, then, the single cushion of space between them seeming to stretch and widen. For a moment, he allows himself to mourn the days where they’d sit close together on Lucas’ couch, waking in dappled sunlight with her head on his shoulder and his hand on her back as the credits rolled. And always, Lucas would try so hard to contain his sheer glee at seeing the two of them together, blinking dreams out of their eyes and murmuring soft words of apology. Eventually, there’d come days where they didn’t bother with apologies, merely smiled and relaxed into each other’s warmth and company. 

They aren’t doing that now, though.

“I don’t want to leave New York, Jo.” He says as he looks into her warm, dark eyes. "I want to be here to see life bloom in trees once bare and flowers once dormant. I want to be here for early morning subway rides with Lucas and Lieutenant Reece’s firm yet kind lectures. I want to be here for Hanson’s muttered comments about British charm and Abe’s impromptu dates with his old flames."

He pauses to lick the inside of his lower lip, a crooked smile curving his lips upwards when he speaks again. “But most importantly, I want to be here for you. For you, us, the adventure we could be…” His smile fades a touch as he remembers himself, adding, “If, of course, you’ll still have me after this conversation’s end.”

“I will. I mean, I might.” Jo blinks once, twice. “I want to, I just...I don’t really know, Henry.”

Henry nods his understanding and murmurs, “tea?” like that and that alone can fix all that’s shifted, shattered and broken between them.

She winces at the word and he nods again, damning himself for being so thoughtless as his gaze sweeps over her bandaged arm. “Right. My apologies. Perhaps some water, or hot cocoa? I could make you some, it’d only take just a minute…”

“Cocoa sounds good.” He rises from his spot on the couch and moves to fix them both a steaming mug of cocoa. Where he’d once squeeze her hand before he left the room, he now only promises that he’ll be back in a moment. The loft falls quiet as he fixes the cocoa and warms up a plate of Abe’s peppermint snap cookies in the oven. Outside, the occasional car passes in a low hum, the streets around the shop hushed and still compared to the usual rush of traffic they garner. 

Jo doesn’t say much of anything, merely watches him move this way and that as he prepares everything. Were this any other day, he’d almost feel like this were a date of sorts. As date-like as the two of them get, anyway, for the silence is comfortable and the loft is cozy and he so, so wishes that’s what this could be. A date of sorts, a few hours away from the rest of the world as they sip at cocoa laden with whipped cream and talk of nothing, anything, over a movie neither pay much attention to.

But that’s not what this is. So he brings himself not to delay, to stall, for too long in the kitchen and moves back into the living room soon enough. He hands her her mug with a soft, “There you go” before setting the plate of cookies on the coffee table. When she takes the mug, her fingers almost brush his and almost give him hope. He settles back into his spot on the couch and swallows that hope with his first sip of cocoa and bite of cookie. A moment passes, and then another, both awash in their own thoughts.

“Hey Henry?” Comes the sound of Jo’s voice over the lip of her mug.

“Yes, Detective?” He thinks he must imagine the little smile on her lips at the familiar title, must imagine the way she leans close as she rises from her reclining position and sets her mug on the table.

“Before you go into this long story of yours, I just…I need to…” She bites her lip, then, a leftover tell from her days with Isaac, and Henry's heart stutters against his ribcage. For she’d only ever bit her lip before she kissed Isaac, and that can’t possibly be what’s about to happen, here.

“You just need to what, love?” He echoes as he meets her eyes, gentle prompting made all the more intimate by his slip of the tongue.  _Love_. Is that what she is, now?

“I just need to know.” She murmurs as her gaze flickers and lingers on the set of his mouth. "Just once, okay?” 

Henry looks into her warm, dark eyes and thinks, _knows_ , that yes, love is most certainly what she is, now. It’s what she’s been for quite some while, really. And he knows, then, that he loves Jo. Really loves her. And for a moment, he thinks not of her reaction upon learning that he lives forever, but of an imagined life, a better life, where he’s allowed to love her for even half as long. A life where maybe, just maybe, she loves him, too.

He comes back to the here and now soon after that, though, breathing out a whisper-soft ,“just once” in agreement as the wide, wide space between them narrows into something close and comfortable. Familiar. And he cares not to stop what’s about to happen, because after he tells her the truth of him, after he finishes this long story of his, this easy spell may never fall over them again. He thinks he can live with that, thinks he can adapt to a life without her and all they could’ve been. He's never been fond of just once, for he prefers to linger in what he loves. 

But in this moment, Henry Morgan will take just once. He’ll take just once if it means that he gets even a taste of Paris and all they could’ve been there.

Time seems to blur and slows as she leans toward him and he, her. 

Their lips meet, then, and his mind goes suddenly, blissfully quiet. He’s not a thought in his head as the kiss continues, lingers, soft as falling snow and warm as yellow lamplight, and he can feel the whisper of her smile against his lips as he moves his hand to thread through her hair. He can feel her every movement with startling clarity as she responds to him in kind, fingers ghosting over the stubble that whispers along his jaw as those of her free hand settle on the nape of his neck. 

His pulse races anew as they stay like that for the space of one, two, three heartbeats. Her lips are like wine and he thinks himself tipsy, wishes and wants and aches to get drunk on this, on her. There’s an undercurrent of more to this kiss, of snow that melts into water and warmth that builds into flame, but he’s careful not to take it there. But she isn't, and he lets out a low hum of surprise when she tugs him ever closer and licks the lingering taste of cocoa off his lower lip. She kisses him dizzy and breathless and some of the cocoa splashes out of his mug and onto the floor before he finally manages to set the thing down on the coffee table, eyes closed. 

He's drowning in the taste of her, the feel of her, but it’s a  _good_  drowning and he hopes to never come up for air. Her hands find his shirt collar and tug him close, close, close, until there’s not a breath of space left between them. And maybe it’s because he knows they only have just once, or because he’s momentarily overcome by a sudden and warm wave of real and true affection for her, but he cups her cheek and whispers, “Jo” in a voice that sounds not unlike their kiss: heated and sensual, made low by the touch of her lips and warmth of her hands.

She makes good on her promise of just once, though, and pulls away to look at him as though waking from a dream. And he’s momentarily lost for words as his gaze moves over her face, memorizing every subtle detail for later (for when he loses her, for he knows he will). Leaning this close to her, he can see flecks of burnished gold in her dark, dark eyes, and can feel the heat of her warm, warm breath ghosting over his lips. How he wishes this moment would never have to end, how he wishes it would play in an endless loop for the rest of his days. But he knows it will end as all others have, so he once again returns to memorizing the infuriately lovely Detective standing before him.

Her dark hair’s been made wild and mussed from his roaming, intrepid fingers, and an almost shy grin splits his lips as he moves to brush stray strands this way and that until it looks more or less the same as before he’d kissed her lips a lovely, deep shade of pink. Her cheeks, too, are flushed that same lingering shade of pink as she moves to fold his shirt collar back into place.

“I…uhm.” She’s trying hard not to smile and he’s trying hard not to notice. “Hi.”

They’re sitting close enough that their foreheads meet, and he cannot seem to swallow the soft, warm note of something in his voice when he murmurs, “Hullo, Detective. Would you like me to tell you my story, now?” around a crooked smile.

She nods, then, but her gaze falls to his lips and lingers there long enough that he wonders if she, too, thinks just once wasn’t enough.

“Well.” He ventures as she pulls away from him to fetch her mug, the cocoa within long gone lukewarm. “Shall I start at the beginning, then?”

Her warm, dark eyes meet his as she settles back into the throw pillows and murmurs, “Tell me about her, first. Abigail.”

There isn’t a hint of jealousy, of hurt, in Jo’s voice as his wife’s name rolls off her tongue, now. There’s an echo of the same soft, warm note that’d seeped into his tone a moment ago, and even a whisper of understanding there, too, as she adds, “Tell me about going to the museum with her. It’s a good memory, right?”

He nods, then, small smile gracing his lips as he takes up his mug once more and sips at the drink within. When he’s finished, he murmurs, “It’s a great memory, that one.”

“And why’s that?” She asks with a curious tilt of her head as she makes herself comfortable.

“Because the night we crashed Gloria Carlyle’s art exhibit was the same night I proposed to Abigail. …With Gloria’s urging, I might add.”

A laugh leaves Jo’s lips as she sits up to regard him. “Woah, woah, woah. You  _knew_  Gloria?” A pause, and then, “So that’s why you brushed her hair back like that at the morgue."

“Of course I knew Gloria.” He says around a smile and a roll of his eyes, to which he’s rewarded with a swift punch to the arm. All this time, he’d worried and worried and  _worried_  that if and when they were to kiss, it’d change everything. So he’s happy to be on the receiving end of her teasing punches if it means that yes, things can go on just as they have. That  _they_  can go on just as they have. At least for the moment, anyway.

“How long ago was this? And how old was she, exactly?” She reaches for his hand and murmurs, “I’m so sorry, Henry."

“It’s quite alright, Detective. I believe she’s at peace, now. But our initial meeting must’ve been a good seventy years ago, now. And if I recall right, then she was at the ripe age of thirty, maybe thirty five, then.” And for once, he sees not a glimmer of the past before him, but the cozy first floor of the loft apartment. It  _is_  cozy, really, with Jo curled up close enough to rest her feet in his lap as she tugs a blanket over her own. He thinks it fitting to start this way, to ease into his long story with snippets of things Jo already knows and perhaps even finds familiar: the museum, the love of his life, and the high-profile celebrity who reminded him that maybe he didn't have as much time as he'd thought.

And Jo just blinks at the numbers he gives and says only, “Okay. And how old were you?” in reply. Her voice that sounds not unlike she’s working through evidence in a case. Though Henry's distantly aware this could all be used later in a case against him, he pushes the thought down and away before he can lose his nerve.

“That depends, Detective. Would you like the real answer or the neat and tidy lie?” He knows what she’ll say the moment he asks, but the space between his question and her answer gives him some time to prepare himself for her denial, her rejection.

“The real answer, Henry.”

Henry dares look into Jo’s warm, trusting eyes as he says, “It was 1945. The war had just ended a good few months before, and I hadn’t been so in love with someone since…well.” His mind flits to Nora a moment. “That’s a story for another time."

He takes a deep breath and tries to summon even an ounce of the man he was at the war’s end. That Henry would know what to do, he would have the right words. But time hasn’t given him the right words, or even better words, and he’s learned long ago that sometimes, in love, there aren’t any. So he swallows a twinge of fear and meets Jo’s gaze head on, murmuring, “I was a hundred and sixty six years old, then, Jo."

She shifts, then, socked feet meeting the hardwood as she moves off the couch and away from him. He can feel the distance between them widening, threatening to swallow him as it yawns and opens into a chasm. For a moment, just one, a shudder moves through him as he allows himself to remember Nora’s reaction once more. But then, life surprises him, _Jo_ surprises him, the chasm between them shifting and narrowing as she reaches out a hand and squeezes his own.

“Hey. Breathe, okay?” She says as she meets his eyes. “I just think if we’re really going to have this conversation, then I’m gonna need something a  _little_ stronger than cocoa.”

He doesn’t know whether to laugh or sob at that and makes a noise that sounds somewhere between the two. It takes him a good moment to find his voice again, and when he does, he manages a quiet, “She would’ve like you, you know.”

Jo doesn’t have to ask who he’s referring to and says, “And Sean would’ve liked you, Henry” as she moves to the kitchen to find the familiar nook where he keeps his wine. It’s a simple truth, this one, but it still pools into a crevice of his heart and warms another part of him he thought forever frozen.  _She_  warms a part of him he’d once thought forever frozen, unravels memories and feelings he thought long buried by space and time.

"Once he got past your initial weirdness, anyway. And creepiness. And your extensive knowledge on women’s fashion."

“Are you quite finished, Detective?” Henry asks around a smile as she finds the particular bottle she’s looking for and pours them both a glass. A long minute later, she makes her way back to the living room with both glasses in hand and a wicked smirk on her face.

“Mm, y’know, from this angle…” He already knows what’s coming, lets out a groan as her tone shifts and settles somewhere between feigned annoyance and real affection. “No, I’m sorry, this  _vector_ , you look pretty good for your age.”

“Oh, do hand me that glass already.”

She relents in her onslaught, but still wears a smirk on her face as she makes to join him on the couch and hands him his glass. He takes a sip of his drink and relishes in the familiar taste of it on his tongue. And just as Henry’d thought, Jo pulls a face the moment she sips at her own drink and mutters, “Jesus, this tastes like it’s as old as you are.”

“Is that what you think, then? Because I wouldn’t mind if you had another taste just to confirm that hypothesis.” He says as he licks the inside of his lower lip again. And he grins, grins, grins, wicked and crooked, as her gaze flickers to his mouth a moment.

“Dammit, Henry. This is not the time.” 

“No, I suppose it’s not.” Comes his answer, voice low and warm with light and laughter. “Because I still owe you a story.”

“And it’d better be a damn good one if you’ve kept it a secret this long.” She murmurs over the lip of her glass as she sips at it again. Though she still pulls the same face, and he still tries hard not to laugh.

His eyes glimmer in the lamplight as he murmurs, “Believe me, Detective, it’s one of the best. And as it were, Abigail and I snuck into the exhibit by posing-“

“Impersonating.” She supplements.

“Fine, fine. We were impersonating, as you say, a Mr. and Mrs. Vermeer. Abigail played the part brilliantly, of course, whereas I couldn’t keep up the charade once Gloria found us admiring the exhibit.”

“And that paining Gloria died admiring, was that…?”

Henry nods, then, something of a smile on his lips as he murmurs, “Abigail’s favorite? Yes, yes it was.” 

It’s hard to talk about, this particular memory. And Jo knows that, seems to sense it, and squeezes his hand in hers to remind him that she’s here. Or perhaps to remind him that  _he’s_ here, that he’s here in the present with her and not drifting through the past with Abigail.

“It poured long and hard all afternoon that day, but she looked like a dream twirling around the museum steps in that dress of hers…” And again, he smiles some as a pang of heartache whispers through his ribcage. But even as he delves ever further into the story, allows the memory to wash over him like the light, warm notes in Abigail’s perfume once did, he doesn’t let himself grow too far away from Jo. He can feel when he’s starting to drift to that space in his head, that space where Abigail is still young and brilliant and breathtakingly lovely, and brings himself back to the present moment before he can let it get away from him. For forever is composed of nows, and he knows damned well he can’t well and truly enjoy the nows if he’s awash in the thens.

* * *

 Here and there, she interrupts to marvel at a detail he remembers with vivid, startling clarity (the exact color of Abigail’s dress, the names of some of the more famous guests, even the taste of the food) or simply grins at the light and airy note that creeps into his voice the longer he speaks.

“Wait, wait, you told her you’d love her  _forever_?” A giggle bubbles up and out of her mouth, then, and he tries to memorize the sound of it for later, for when he’s no longer so privileged as to hear it, for when he’s no longer the reason behind a laugh as light and airy and sweet as hers. Because he knows this won’t last, knows her laughter will fade and she will not believe him when he offers her the truth. So he keeps her laughing for as long as he can because it is one of the very best sounds he’s heard in a long, long while (in months, years, _decades_ , and his heart nearly bursts with the weight of the second truth he’s dared keep inside it).

“It was heartfelt, I assure you! And I do believe she teared up by the proposal’s end.”

She snorts and murmurs, “I can’t say I’m surprised with a line like that. And please don’t tell me you made the same jokes about time back then, too.”

“Okay. I will not tell you I made the same jokes about time then as I do now.” He’s laughing, now, too, as he adds, “But I’m afraid I would be lying to you again.”

She meets his gaze and says, “Henry Morgan, you did not!” around a peel of laughter, going well and truly into hysterics now. But he’s right there with her, laughing, laughing, laughing, as he insists that Abigail found his jokes amusing more often than not. He needs this moment to last, needs it to never end. Because when she stops laughing and starts asking the hard questions, he’s going to have to give her the hard answers. And she will not understand those answers, she will not believe they are the complete and honest truth. But he doesn’t want to think of later, now, so he regales her with stories of years past, where with Abigail at his side, he’d made joke after joke of having all the time in the world.

It’s more or less how Abe finds them when he ventures back into the room with talk of going through his mother's old things.

He trails off at the sight of Jo, all snug with Henry on the couch, her socked feet resting atop his legs and cheeks flushed from laughing so hard. “Oh…sorry about that, kid. Didn’t realize you were still here.”

She dismisses his apology with a wave of her hand and moves to stretch out her arms, and it’s almost like Henry can  _see_ the laughter leaving her eyes, then. Oh, no.  _No, no, no._

“Don’t worry about it, Abe. Henry was just telling me about Abigail, actually.”

“Was he now?” Abe asks as he looks to Henry, but his voice sounds faraway, distant, as Henry’s mind catches and snags on the reality that he’s going to lose one of the most precious relationships in his life. He’s going to lose her to the truth and if not the truth, then time, and how can he do this? How can he do this? Henry has always been selfish in this, in running away and leaving no trace of his long, long life behind for those who might come looking. But he cannot do that to Jo, cannot run and hide and leave no echoes of himself behind; because she deserves to know. His earlier conversation with the Lieutenant comes back to him, then ( _let her in, Henry_ ) met by the memory of Hanson’s own advice to just tell her.

So with that in mind, he meets Jo’s gaze and murmurs, “I was indeed. But I believe we still have more to discuss.”

She nods, then, as Abe helps her into her coat and bundles her up in one of Henry’s scarves. He gives the two of them an eye roll and says, “Yeah,  _discuss_ ” in a voice that says he saw everything. And if not everything, then enough. Henry’s cheeks flush with heat as he dons his own layers again, and nerves knife through him as a look passes over Abraham’s face. He expects disappointment or even a twinge of anger. But what he finds on his son’s face is neither, and he’s instead met with something that looks like amusement, like joy.

Heart swelling in his chest, he moves to kiss Abe’s cheek goodnight and says that he’ll be back soon. Abe waves him away with his hand and murmurs that if not, he knows where to find him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raise your hand if you feel personally victimized by this latest chapter. ;) *awaits the hand raises with evil fanfic writer's glee* And be honest, who screamed?
> 
> But seriously though, I'd like to thank you guys again for sticking with me this far into the game. This has been my first real dive into writing fics for the fandom, and I've gotta say, I'm enjoying every minute of writing this thing! (Probably just as much as you guys are reading it. *hopes*)
> 
> Next up, you can expect a long walk home, a look into Jo's past, and a confession from Henry.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She blinks once, twice, and he wonders then if she can see the utmost affection (and love) he has for her, too. Wonders if she can see it reflected in his eyes and hear it in his voice. But then she throws her arms ‘round his shoulders and pulls him in tight to her for a hug, and his mind’s wiped blissfully clean of any and all thought other than the warmth and feel of her. “Henry Morgan, you immortal piece of shit. You always know just what to say, don’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where Henry walks Jo home, comforts her over a loss from her past, and later, once they've gone inside and gotten comfortable, freezes up over any and all questions she asks about /his/ past. Also known as the chapter where Henry is forever afraid, and most definitely inspired by idelthought's The Honest Truth fic.
> 
> The words just wouldn't come with this chapter, but after four tries, I think I've finally found the right ones. Or at least better ones. As always, your comments, kudos and encouragement are much appreciated! 
> 
> Thanks for being so patient with this one, and I hope you enjoy!

* * *

She walks backwards a ways ahead of him, turned towards him so he can see the smile on her face and flurry of snow crowning her head. And there’s a moment where he hears not a word she says, because he’s so captivated by the simple joy on her face. She’s looking to the snow and smiling, smiling, smiling, murmuring that maybe it’s Sean sending his approval. 

And he can only give her a crooked smile in return and say, “Or perhaps Abigail. She always did love the snow…”

Her smile grows all the wider as he catches up to her slow stride. “So did Sean.”

He moves to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear, then, cannot help the way his voice lowers and warms as he murmurs, “And he loved you too, Jo. Every day.”

She blinks once, twice, and he wonders then if she can see the utmost affection (and love) he has for her, too. Wonders if she can see it reflected in his eyes and hear it in his voice. But then she throws her arms ‘round his shoulders and pulls him in tight to her for a hug, and his mind’s wiped blissfully clean of any and all thought other than the warmth and feel of her. “Henry Morgan, you immortal piece of shit. You always know just what to say, don’t you?”

Chin resting snug on her shoulder, Henry grins into the shadows of her hair and murmurs, “Well, I have been known to say the wrong thing a time or two. And in front of the President of the United States, no less.”

“You’re kidding.” Jo pulls away to look at him, then, eyes glimmering in the lamplight.

Though he thinks of teasing her, of murmuring that no, he’s perfectly serious, he knows it wrong of him to lie to her like this, to lie to her when she’s so light and content and  _happy_ in his arms. So he looks to her with a smile on his lips as the embrace ends and says that no, he’s not yet met an American president.

She delivers a swift punch to his shoulder, then, and he winces at the blow as they walk together. “Ow. Must you have hit the same arm as before?”

“Serves you right, Henry.” 

He knows it does, but he smiles at her all the same as he leans close to her, into her, to murmur, “Now tell me, Detective, are you going to hit me for that earlier display of affection, too?”

Jo responds that she’s definitely considering it, but he can find no truth behind her words - for they’re uttered around the softest of smiles as they meander down the sidewalk. Snow falling faster and heavier around them, their steps remain lazy and languid, neither in a rush to get to their destination. She asks for another story as they make the trek to her home, and he regales her with tales not of the atrocities of the war and the deaths it brought, but of long summer days filled with light and laughter. Days where his family was complete and his heart full.

He sticks to lighter stories tonight, not yet ready to bridge the gap into the dark and dreadful tales of his immortal beginnings. And for as much as he tells her about himself, she responds in kind with stories about her own life. It’s shorter than his, of course, but by no means less lived. She tells him of her childhood, of hugging her father ‘round the leg and squeezing tight, of giving him and her mother toothless grins for every little thing she’d managed on her own. But something in her tone shifts, changes, as she continues on.

“My dad…he passed away when I was nineteen.” It’s her gaze and not his own that goes unseeing, now, and he reaches a gloved hand out to hers, squeezing tight to remind her that he’s here, that she’s not alone.

“It’s hard, isn’t it? To watch those we love, those who raised us and gave us everything they had, slip away so soon.”

She nods, then, murmurs, “It _hurts_ ” on a sound that sounds like a sob, and he wraps his arm around her shoulders without another word.

How long they walk like this, he doesn’t know. But after a beat or two of comfortable silence, he offers that he too, lost his father. And then, without thinking of it, without remembering his unspoken promise to himself to stick to lighter, happier affairs, he murmurs that he lost his siblings as well.

“My younger sister, Jane, to illness, and my brother, Edward, to drowning.” A rueful smile on his lips, he adds, “No wonder I’ve no love for the water after all these years.”

Though she doesn’t yet know of his awakenings, doesn’t yet know that he always revives in water, the sentence still holds a world of truth on its own. For ever since Henry received word of Edward’s passing, he’s stayed clear away from any and all bodies of water. But even so, he hadn't hesitated to jump into the Hudson to save a drunk and drowning James after one too many drinks.

Even so, he'd begun to whimper into the night when no amount of gentle prodding and low murmurs had awoken him. Heart in his throat, he’d confessed to him, then,  _If you’re to go, now, then you need to know, James. I’ve been cursed with a wretched gift of immortality…_ And when he hadn’t come to, Henry'd leaned in close and murmured, _and if you’re to go now, know that I will love you forever, always._

He tells Jo of that story, too, murmuring that the line about loving Abigail forever hadn’t been quite as original as she’d thought. And James  _had_ awoken, coughing up a mouthful of water that’d soon turned to a mouthful of blood Henry hadn’t the training to stop. 

“Is that what you’d remembered when you came bounding up to my desk talking about tuberculosis?” She asks with a certain wonder and sorrow in her voice, and he murmurs that no, he’d remembered far worse: the day he’d found James undergoing some horrid, horrid version of electrotherapy to try and rid himself of the disease.

Knowing damned well he cannot call up the memory of another loved lost, tonight, Henry moves instead to a different tale. He thinks it’s at once amusing and so very sad that as soon as he starts talking of all this, he simply cannot stop. And he knows it must be because loss has been the one constant in his life. Sometimes, when he’s alone with his thoughts, he can feel the weight of that loss threatening to crush him. But he doesn’t feel so crushed as he and Jo walk together tonight, doesn’t feel quite as unhinged and alone with her by his side.

Even so, he breathes deep to try and steady the wild thud of his heart before starting in on this particular story. He and Abraham had gone to the beach one long summer afternoon when Abigail was away at work, and he'd allowed Abe to take a dip in the water with a few of his friends. But they’d been better swimmers than his boy, had known a rip current when they’d seen one. Abe, however, hadn’t, and it’s like he can almost  _hear_ his petrified little screams over the crashing waves.

“The water was so bloody  _cold_  that day, too. How Abraham didn’t get hypothermia then, I’ve still no idea…” Henry murmurs as they walk down the snowy lane, trying long and hard to stay rooted to the present even as the past threatens to pull him back and under.

“Water…” She echoes, voice somewhere between wonder and revelation as she slows her step to look at him. Really look at him. 

_Oh, no._

“Henry, how many times have you been skinny dipping in the East River?” Jo sounds not unlike she’s working through a case, now. His own, from the way she’s looking at him.

Pulse echoing in his ears, he exhales long into the night and doesn’t dare look away from her as he says, “Seven times, if I recall right. Though I’ve only been found on two occasions.”

All the light and laughter leaves her eyes when she ventures, “You weren’t really sleep walking, were you?”

It’s not a question, but Henry knows she’s awaiting the answer all the same. And for a moment, just one, his head fills with a kaleidoscope of memories of shared moments together - they move in quick succession before his eyes, snapshots of the forever they’d composed in all those nows. Reaching for her hand as she sat a ways beyond the hulking wreckage of her car, looking at her with equal parts hope, wonder and sheer disbelief when she confessed why she wasn’t going to Paris, feeling her warm gaze lingering on his face over dinner conversation, clinking glasses together and laughing, laughing, laughing at McSorley's, brushing a whisper-soft kiss to her hairline as she cried herself out over Sean’s passing…It all comes back to him, then, and he knows in that moment that he’s not about to lose her to death. No, he’s about to lose her to a fate far worse than death - because he’s going to lose her to the truth.

“No, I’m afraid I wasn’t truly sleeping walking.” They stop walking all together, now, standing close enough that he can see the glittering crown of snow in her hair and deep, burnished gold in her eyes. He doesn’t dare look away for even a moment as he moves a gloved finger through her hair and over her cheek, committing this moment to his kaleidoscope of nows, of forevers, before he ruins it wholly and completely. 

“Thought not.” She almost smiles at him, in that moment, and he thinks he’s never wished for a photographic memory as much as he does in the beat between her smile and her words. “You gonna come clean once and for all, or am I gonna have to drag the truth out of you kicking and screaming?”

He swallows hard and confesses that it’s probably going to be six of one and half a dozen of the other. She seems to accept that answer and holds out a hand; he takes it without a word and they walk like that, staying quiet, a long while. He can’t say it’s a comfortable silence on his end, not when fear knifes through his chest and slices clear through his heart at the thought of exposing the whole of his secret once and for all. He’s not told anyone in ages, not since Abraham had seen him slip into the dark of the apartment after getting into a car wreck that should’ve taken any mortal man’s life. It’d taken Henry's all the same, and he’d moved inside the house to be greeted not with that of Abigail’s open arms, but Abe’s wide and horrorstruck stare.

* * *

“Come on, I’ll get you something to drink.” Jo says when they arrive at the bright red of her door some minutes later, the sound of her voice pulling him out of that dark, dark memory. "Might take the edge off.”

She unlocks the door and moves inside, then, and he follows behind her muttering that not much in this world can take the edge off immortality. He thinks only death can do that, if even for a few moments, but thinks better of mentioning it. They shed their coats and scarves soon after they step inside, and he closes the door behind him as she tries hard to stamp the cold out of her feet. Once all’s hung up and away in the hall closet, she murmurs something or other about getting drinks and strides away to the kitchen. Though Henry offers to help in some way (and he needs to help, needs to do something with his hands so they won’t shake so bloody much), she waves him away toward the living room and says he can help by loosening up a bit.

Right. He can do that. Or perhaps die trying, anyway.

He gives up, gives in, settling on the couch and breathing deep to try and keep himself together. Jo knows a good deal about his condition already, and she’s not run from him yet. She knows eons more than Abigail did at this stage in the game, when they’d known each other just shy of a year. But maybe Jo hasn’t run from him yet because of the alcohol whispering through her bloodstream and dulling her senses, her perception. Maybe she hasn’t run from him because she doesn’t know enough,  _believe enough_ , to do so. Still, just because she doesn’t now doesn’t mean the same won’t hold true later. And he finds himself unable to breathe at the thought of later, of when she sends him out the door and into the fast-falling snow with hurt in her eyes and venom in her voice.

It’s a terrifying possibility, and he’s unable to remain still, or even attempt at settled, as long as the idea looms so large in his mind. So he moves up and off the couch and paces the length of the floor, back and forth, back and forth, moving from one end of the room to the other as he awaits for Jo to make her way back to the living room. When she does return once more, it’s with drinks in both hands.

“I know this probably isn’t up to par with whatever it is you immortal snobs-" She pauses here, and he knows what’s coming before she even opens her mouth. “No, I’m sorry,  _elites,_ drink, but it’s what I’ve got tonight, so it’s what you’re getting.”

He smiles some and murmurs, “as you wish” before he takes the offered glass from her. She blinks once, twice at his words, looking at him like he’s just knocked all the breath out of her.  He wonders then if he's just said something impossibly old, impossibly  _Henry_  again. Or worse, something that laps at a distant wave of memory, a soft and simple reminder of Sean she cannot escape as she stands there frozen in the living room. A living room she’d once shared with him and then all at once…didn’t.

“Are you quite alright?” He asks as his smile slips and fades away. 

“Yeah. I uh...” Whatever the memory may be, she seems to shake it off as fast as it'd come on, and a smile whispers across her mouth where it didn’t before. “I’m good, Henry.”

He doesn’t press her on the issue and she makes no move to elaborate, just hands him his wine glass and settles down on the couch. When he makes no move to join her, cannot bear the thought of sitting still and settled again, she pulls him down to the couch with a simple tug on his scarf. The gesture’s so easy, so familiar, that he almost dares hopes that nothing’s changed between them. When really, he knows everything has. When really, he knows it’ll keep changing for every word that leaves his lips tonight. Pulse racing, he takes a long sip of his wine as he tries to make himself comfortable, distance between them noticeable but only just.

Long moments pass between them, silence growing and stretching as both of them sip at their drinks. He knows she’s waiting for him to speak first, knows she expects him to launch into some story from his past with the same casual ease he’d spoke of proposing to Abigail. But he can’t seem to summon the words, now, not for the life of him. And Jo notices that. Of course she does. She’s trained to notice it, has probably always noticed when he’s holding something back. But the heat of her stare is made all the worse, now, because now there’s no one and nothing to help him divert her attention away from him. He hasn’t got a case to work, a dead body to analyze, or a theory to utter. And he’s _terrified._

Jo seems to sense that, too, and moves to nudge him in the shoulder, murmuring, “You can tell me, y’know. Whatever it is you wanna say, you can say it.”

“I can’t, Jo.” He says around a wry smile and a shake of his head as his fingers begin to tremble around the stem of his wine glass. “I wish I could, truly, but I just… _can't_.”

“Okay.” She moves her hand over his, squeezing his fingers a moment before pulling away. “And if I ask questions and you answer them?”

He gives a nod of his head and murmurs that yes, he thinks he can manage that. They sip at their drinks a while before she shifts on the couch, drawing her legs up underneath her as she turns towards him a touch. Her socked feet brush against his leg, then, and he recoils from the contact as though stung, burned. Hurt flickers in her eyes at the movement, and he offers a low apology and murmurs, “Your feet are cold.”

“Oh, says the freezer block over here!” Comes Jo’s reply, soft and full of laughter over the lip of her glass. But he doesn’t laugh aloud at the quip like he would any other day, any other time, doesn’t even summon up a half-smile for her. He can’t, not when his head’s racing with thoughts of losing her to the truth.

He’d thought he could do this, thought he could swallow down the black hole of fear and worry and crushing, crushing terror at the thought of telling someone his secret, of letting someone in. But he can’t. He _can’t,_ and for every moment he sits still, he thinks and wants and aches to run, to get away, to move out the door and down the street and disappear into the night as the snow swirls and settles over the city. He could do it. He knows he’d hate every blood minute of it, but he could do it. He could start over.

“When I came by that day and walked into your lab…” Already, he knows what she’s going to ask but doesn’t move to stop her, cannot find his voice in the haze of his racing thoughts and pounding heartbeat. “When you had your bags packed and your passport out, looked at me with that bloodied knife…"

Her voice is soft, gentle, but he can hear an undercurrent of the detective in her just beneath the surface. And he wants to run, run hard and fast and _away_ from that undercurrent, leave before it can grow to a tidal wave of realization that’s not so soft and subtle and hidden.

“Is that what this is about, Henry?"

But he’s frozen in place, fear holding him hostage in her home, on her couch, keeping him bound with her soft voice and dangerous, dangerous questions. He shouldn’t have agreed to this, shouldn’t have agreed to any of it. Because she’s asking the right ones, now. She’s asking the right ones and he’s sure he’s gong to slip up with his answers somewhere along the line. Sure she’s going to find out the truth somewhere along the line.

 He can hear her working out a theory with every word that leaves her lips, can almost sense the conclusion she’s drawing before she even utters it, before the thought even so much as enters her mind. Or maybe it’s never left. Maybe it’s always been there, turned over and over like soil in a garden, growing and growing like a seed watered often. Every part of him is screaming to move, to run, to save himself from feeling something. But his limbs will not listen, will not cooperate, and he stays rooted in place.

“Yes.” He manages after a long moment, not quite looking at her when he says, “But it’s much bigger than that, Jo. Much, much bigger.”

She huffs out a laugh and murmurs, Somehow, “I thought you’d say that. Adam pretty much said the same.”

 _Adam_ echoes in his ears, the single word draining all the color from the room and breath from his body as he looks to Jo, pulse thundering and thoughts tunneling. Henry knows, then, that she must’ve gone to Adam for information on his condition. But how could that be when she’d told him she didn’t want to hear his story? Had she changed her mind, then, decided she wanted to know? Or had she just thought him mad and hoped Adam would provide her with further proof of it the night she’d gone back to the cottage by the river?

Whatever the reason, his jaw still clenches and sets at the thought of Adam even daring to step foot in Jo’s direction. He’d toyed with her, hurt her, and anger stirs in him hot enough, burns bright enough, to swallow the ancient wave of fear. Adam'd  _hurt_  her. And for a good moment, all he can see is red, red, red, as he whisper-hisses, “I told him to stay bloody well away from you. _I told him_.” 

“He said that you two weren’t so different, that you had the same condition, and I just don’t understand.” She shakes her head and says it again, soft note in her voice giving way to quiet horror. “I don’t understand.”

A long moment passes, and then another, with Henry neither denying the statement or offering any sort of explanation. His teeth ache with the extent of his anger, head spinning as he pushes up the sleeve of her shirt and looks to the wound that cuts across her the length of her arm. It’s dressed with a gauze bandage she hasn’t yet changed, the strip of cloth browned and darkened with her blood. Blood Adam spilled. Blood he could’ve prevented. 

“I’m so sorry, Jo.” He murmurs on a choked noise of emotion as the pads of his fingers follow his gaze, digits sweeping over the bandage that lay over her wound. “I’m so sorry, I never would’ve…”

His voice fades, falters, and he swallows something like a sob before he tries speaking again. “Don’t think for a minute that this is your fault. Because it’s mine, completely mine, and if I’d just told you before-“

“Would you have even tried?” She asks as she meets his gaze, voice both sharp and soft at the same time. It cradles him just as it cuts him, and he cannot breathe against a sudden wave of pain. But he cannot answer her.

“You’re not even gonna tell me now, are you?” 

“How can I begin?” He says at last, around a laugh that’s low and dark and so, so very mirthless. “ _Where_ can I begin?” 

She shakes her head and says that she doesn’t know, voice a distant and tired echo of his own.

* * *

He deserves none of her patience and even less of her trust, and it’s a wonder she’s still so willing to give him even a shred of either after all he’s told her up until now. But now he has no words, not better ones or right ones or even awful ones, wrong ones. He cannot speak, cannot summon up the strength to when he knows that anything he says could be the end of them, of all that they are and could be. So he says nothing, just sips and sips and sips at his wine until his mind goes hazy. But the fear’s still there, looming large in his mind despite the alcohol singing in his blood. He thinks the alcohol almost makes it worse, magnifies his fears into something he cannot overcome and doesn't dare fight. 

“When were you born?” She ventures, then, and he thinks he knows what’s to come the moment she asks.

“September 19th. If I remember right, last year you bought me a doughnut from a bakery Lucas frequents on his days off and stuck a candle into it before singing an endearingly off-key happy birthday.” Something of a smile comes to his face when he murmurs, “Best party I’ve had in years, I can assure you."

“But when, Henry? What year?”

He doesn’t answer her, can’t, and says instead, “I was rather touched that you even remembered my saying I liked bavarian cream doughnuts best, much less bought me one on my birthday.”

“ _Henry_.”

“Yes, Detective?” He asks around a long exhale.

“When? September 19th, _when?_ ” She’s leaning close to him, now, her knees near to his thigh as she moves closer and closer to him. And he cannot tell her, cannot will the words out of his mouth, even though every word out of hers insists and begs that he so much as try. But he can’t try, is afraid to try, so he doesn’t dare. 

Jo comes up with another question, then, eyes holding his and rooting him to his spot on the couch even as every fiber of his being yells to go, to escape, to run and never return. But he can’t do that either, because this is Jo. This is Jo, and he knows he'd regret running the second he got on that plane. If he even made it that far.

“Are you in witness protection? Maybe MI6 or something?” She’s familiar with these things, could accept these things if he’d only nod his head in agreement.

“The police,” He pauses, here, sees hope and relief glimmer in her eyes at the answer. But he’s not quite finished, yet, can’t bear to leave the sentence hanging in the air between them.

“The detail, Jo. Reece sent some of her best officers to watch over you…” He casts a glance around, looks to the windows and the door before his gaze moves back to her face. “And they could be listening.”

The glimmer of hope and ripple of relief in her gaze falters as fast as it comes on, falling to the floor and shattering in a thousand glittering shards at his feet. She sets her glass down on the table, moves off the couch, and holds out a hand to him.

“Then we’ll go somewhere else. Anywhere. I just want to know you’re okay, Henry.”

That gets a laugh out of him, low and dark and miserable. “I’m not in any danger, nor am I being threatened.” Then, as if remembering all Adam could do to him, to them, he murmurs, “At least not at the moment, anyway.”  

Still, he takes her offered hand as he too, moves up and off the couch, drawing strength from her fingers over his own. And she gives him a smile that’s so soft and sad, it’s enough to break his still-beating heart, pulsing loud and hard in his chest as they move toward the door. They don their layers once more, coats and gloves and shoes that withstand the chill in the air outside. His breath catches in his throat when she moves to wind his scarf about her neck, and she gives him the barest hint of a smile before they head out into the cold of the night again, gloved hand reaching for his own.

He exhales long into the night as they head towards her car, the keys jingling in her hand. And with her fingers curled around his, he pretends, for a moment, that all of this end well. But in his heart of hearts, he knows it won’t, can’t - for when has the world ever been so kind to him? He can think of one, perhaps two, occasions in the whole of his never-ending life. And therein lies the problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raise your hand if you got second hand feels from this chapter! *awaits the hand raises and whispers* You're not alone, friend. You're not alone.
> 
> Next up, you can expect a city drive, a walk around the park, and a tender moment between Henry and Lucas. Abe, too, but that'll come later.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And though both linger there, standing close but not quite touching, he knows this is goodbye. He knows it in his head and heart but hopes, hopes with his very soul, that it is not forever. She doesn’t quite look at him when she says that she needs some time, and he nods his understanding. For a moment though, just one, it almost sounds like she's talking about something other than his secret. Because for a moment, it sounds like she's talking about them. About /almosts/ and /maybes/ and another life, a better life, where Paris is possible, where /they/ are possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where Henry and Jo take a city drive, stroll through the park, and have one hell of an emotional conversation. A long while later, Henry shares some tender moments with Lucas, and then Abe.
> 
> This chapter just might take all your Forever feels to a whole new level. Be warned, though: this latest installment's got brief mentions of suicide/blood. So if you know you can't handle that, then you do you and skip right over it.
> 
> As always, your kind words, kudos, and endless encouragement mean the world to me. And I hope the long, long chapter (longest to date!) makes up for the delay!

* * *

“Did you have any particular destination in mind, Detective?” He asks as Jo turns the key in the ignition and starts the engine. The snow’s coming down slower, now, gleaming golden beneath pools of yellow lamp light on the streets and sidewalks. She shakes her head at his question and murmurs no, not really, but says that her older brother Gabe used to drive her around after she’d go into panic attacks as a kid.

“It helped…kinda. So I just thought maybe-“ She gives a shrug of her shoulders as she pulls out into the street. “Maybe it’d help you too, y’know?”

A smile touches his lips, then, voice going low and warm and wistful when he murmurs, “You know, it’s not often in this life I meet someone who surprises me.” And he dares look to her profile as they turn onto an unfamiliar street, blue lights of the dashboard softening the line of her jaw and tangling in the shadows of her hair.  Oh, how he wishes he were brave enough to run his fingers through her hair while he’s still got the chance, wishes he were bold enough to run his fingers across her jaw while the city still sleeps. But he’s not.

“It’s even less often that I like those who surprise me, truth be told.” He adds a beat later, a certain sort of wonder, of sorrow, in his voice when he ventures on. “But I think I’ll miss these moments quite a lot, really.”

 _Much like I’ll miss you_ , sits just on the tip of his tongue, and he brings himself to swallow the words before they can make themselves known. But he thinks she hears them anyway, thinks she knows they’re there.

She meets his gaze as they come to a stoplight a good few moments later, the red of it splashing across her face when she asks, “How d’you know we won’t have more of them?”

“The same way I know much of everything else: time and experience.” He says around a rueful smile.

Jo gives a little shake of her head, the barest hint of a smile on her face as they move through the intersection, “Yeah, well. Maybe experience will prove you wrong this time.”

And he just grins at her gentle optimism as they pass row after row of apartments that’d been slow to build but beautiful, stunning, once they were finally finished, as they pass storefronts and take-out restaurants and all the wide-windowed cafes he’d come to imagine them in. “Ah, but time will catch up to me. It always does.”

How he wishes he could slow it down, live in these quiet moments with her care and her trust and the quietest whispers of all the things she won’t say.  But he cannot, and the moment fades and slips away just like any other. She fills the space between them with stories here and there, and his own voice ebbs and flows as he, too, regales her with a few tales of his own. And though he wishes and wants and ache to keep vague about the details, wishes and wants and aches to ease her toward the truth with slow, steady steps, she manages to draw a number of names and dates from him anyway. The city lay dark and still-sleeping around them as they drive, streets as quiet as they are lovely in the deepest hours of the night. It’s not often he takes time to truly look at the city, to look and see and behold all its beauty. So he takes his time, now, for once getting lost in all there is before him rather than all that lay in the past. He thinks Jo glances to him every now and again, gaze sweeping over the set of his hands and line of his mouth. Assessing. Wondering. Is he okay? 

In the space between one red light and another, he thinks he is. And if not okay, then at least better - all thanks to her.

* * *

Jo eases her car into a spot by a nearby park some time later, and Henry takes a deep breath of air as they get out and stretch their legs. The snow’s long stopped by now, leaving a light dusting of it on the ground before them. He does feel a little better, now. Less manic, restless. The fear’s still there, but it’s quieter in his head and softer in his stomach as she moves to join him on the grass. It’s wet and shimmering with fallen snow, and she holds out a hand to him once more as they start down the trail that moves through the park. 

He takes her offered hand in his own, then, and they walk like that a ways without saying much. It’s a while before either speaks again. He wonders, for a moment, if she’s wholly absorbed in trying to process all he’s told her so far. If she’s trying to work it out in her head the way she often tries to work out a case. And he knows, then, that Jo could turn his whole life into a case. Easily. She could dig deep into his past and find all the things Liz hadn’t patched up. She could find all the bits about himself he’d tried so hard to leave behind, leave buried and gone. She could do that, could unravel the secrets of his life, his past, with a few well-worded internet searches and phone calls. She could.

But she’s still got her hand in his, still got her gloved fingers wrapped around his own. And in that moment, he believes that she won’t do any of it. Because even if she doesn’t believe a word of his story, even if she no longer wishes to choose his insanity, _she’s stayed with him._ Her shoulder’s warm for every time it brushes his, and her boots crunch on the snow-crunched ground as they walk amongst the trail and the trees, and _she’s stayed with him,_ she’s still here. 

“Thank you.” Henry says, then, slowing his stride to look at her - really look at her. 

Something in her expression shifts and softens as their gazes meet. There’s a moment where she looks utterly confused, blinking the stardust of his words away as she gives him that familiar tilt of her head and wide-eyed stare. He knows not when he’s come to adore the gesture so much, but he does. He really does.

Though she’s seemed to rid the stardust from her eyes, it lingers in her voice when she asks, “For what, Henry?” 

“For the drive.” He says in answer, smile curving his lips upwards as he adds a soft and honest, “For our partnership. Your companionship.” 

A look passes over her face, then, a myriad of emotions rolled all into one. And he wonders if she imagines their forever just as he’d done a few hours before, wonders if she pictures all those shared moments they’ve had together. Holding hands, holding breath, sharing food, sharing looks…he wonders if it all comes back to her, then. It all comes back to him, then - without a doubt. He remembers, but he doesn’t linger in the past as he usually would. Nor does he begin thinking the worst about the future. 

No, Henry finds himself wholly grounded in the present when he dares add, “Your laugh, too. It’s one of the best things I’ve heard in quite a long while.”

And she does laugh, then. He smiles at the sound and murmurs that yes, it’s certainly still one of the best things he’s ever heard.

* * *

“One day,” Henry ventures some time later, as their walk takes them through the dark line of the trees and towards the river. “If you ever believe this insanity, if you ever believe me…then I’d like to take a trip with you." He pauses here to lick the inside of his lower lip before speaking again, voice soft. “Anywhere you’d like, any time you’d like.” He grins, then, crooked and warm, as he murmurs, "But I could understand if you had some reservations about Paris."

She looks to him with that classic disbelieving tilt of her head and wide-eyed stare, then. But her eyes are soft and her voice warm when she asks, “Henry Morgan, are you flirting with me?” around that of a smile.

“I think it best I leave that to your better judgement as well, Detective.” He says around one of his own.

And she grins at him, really grins, when she says that maybe they should start with a trip to the museum, first. He thinks that fair and tells her as much, their shoulders brushing as they walk. The city is lovely even now, amidst the haze between the dark of the night and soft, muted hours of the morning. She is, too, and he tries once again to memorize all the subtle details he’s come to love about her. He knows he’d need a lifetime to do it right, do it properly, but he finds a lifetime in a moment. It’s not hard, with her. It’s never hard, with her. 

They walk a ways without saying anything more, quiet falling over them like the snow once had. It’s peaceful, this walk, and for a moment he dares let himself believe that something good will come from it. He’s not let himself get this close to someone in years, in decades, not since Abigail. And he hadn’t planned on telling even her his story, had left a letter on the hotel nightstand in way of explanation before he’d left. But she hadn’t accepted that, his leaving, and he thinks Jo wouldn’t either.

As if sensing that thought, reading it, Jo turns her warm, dark eyes on him and asks, “You won’t leave, will you?”

Henry shakes his head at that and moves to tuck a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. “No. I can’t, Jo.”

And he doesn’t know if it’s because of the night or the morning or because tomorrow, he will lose her, but he slows his step to look at her, then, voice sounding the way sun-warmed honey tastes when he murmurs, “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

She nods and says that yeah, yeah she did, and they walk for some time more before she settles down on a bench by a nearby fountain. It’s pretty, the fountain, lit against the dark of the night and casting a soft, yellow light across the water within. He joins her without a word, feeling impossibly young and yet so very old as his eyes meet hers. The trust in them, the faith in them, is enough to steal his breath and all the words he’d thought to say on the drive over here. 

Jo casts a glance around them, then, looking to the park and the street and the quiet hum of a city not yet awake. “There’s something more, isn’t there? This…whatever this condition is, it doesn’t stop at what you’ve told me, does it?”

“No.” He says around a shake of his head, rueful smile on his lips when he says, “I could show you, Jo. But if I did...” He pauses here, swallowing hard as he weighs the weight of his secret against the weight of their friendship.

There’s no contest, no comparison. So he ruins it all. The moment, the morning, everything. Because in the space between one quick beat of his heart and the next, he looks to Jo and murmurs, “If I did, I’d have to die.”

“ _Don’t_.” Her voice is loud, fierce, urgent, cutting through his every thought as she moves to cup his cheek in her hand. He can feel her fingers trembling just so as they meet his skin - and his heart aches at the thoughts that must be racing through her mind.

He wonders if she's thinking of all those times he's stepped in front of moving cars or tried shielding her from harm. He wonders if she's recalling all those times he's gotten injured on her watch, wonders if she's remembering all those times he'd taken bullet wounds and slashes of a knife like they were nothing more than minor scrapes and paper cuts. He thinks she has to be, thinks she must be, because there's no other reason for the urgency in her voice and fierce look in her eyes. Or at least, none he'll allow himself to think of in this moment.

“Don’t." She says again, softer, but in no way less urgent. "Whatever it is you’re running from, whatever it is you’re trying to keep a secret…” She pauses here, sucking in a sharp breath of air as though to steady herself, keep her composure. “It doesn’t have to come to that.”

“But it might.” The words are up and out of his mouth before he can think about them, stop them. He moves to correct himself, to still the rising tide of manic urgency in his voice, in his very soul. "I don't want it to, Jo, but it might."

“Henry, no…” Her gaze is steady, searching, as she looks into his eyes. “Look, I’ve been there before. And it gets better. A year ago, I didn’t think I’d have any of this. I thought-” She shakes her head, here, pausing a moment as a memory flits before her eyes. “I thought it’d be easier to give up, give in. But I didn’t.”

A hundred and one horrible scenarios race through his mind, then, just as they had in the car all those nights ago. Sometimes, there is blood. And sometimes, there is not. But always, he imagines her gone to the world, her dark eyes empty of all warmth, feeling. And his heart aches once more, pulse echoing in his ears as he moves a hand over hers so their fingers rest together over his cheek. She is here, he reminds himself. She is here.

“And I’m glad for that every day, Detective.” Even this is a whisper of the truth he’s not yet told her of. And he could ruin this shared moment between them by bringing up that truth, that other secret, but in this moment, he is selfish. For he wants this moment to linger, to stay. He doesn’t want her to leave any more than he wants to lose her. But one way or another, he knows he is going to lose her. Because nothing gold can stay, and she is so very gold as she look to him with the night in her eyes and the morning in her voice.

“So am I. Always.” Jo looks at him, then, really looks at him - and for an instant, just one, he thinks he sees a flicker of that second truth mirrored in her gaze. The barest hint of hope sparks within him in that same instant, and he brings himself to swallow it down, tamp it out.

“But I want you to promise me you won’t do it.” She sucks in a breath of air again here, fingers still kissing his stubbled cheek and palm still warming his jaw. How she can still bear to touch him, to even look at him, he doesn't know. A thought comes to mind, then, a thought that whispers of that second truth he'd thought he'd seen mirrored in her eyes minutes ago - but he pushes it down, away, and nods his head in agreement that yes, he won’t do it. He won't die.

But she isn’t having any of his wordless gestures and cues today - because today, she needs more. She needs the vocal and solid reassurance that he won’t, much like she needed a vocal and solid answer as to why a thirty-year old case had him acting so out of sorts, so unlike himself.

“Promise me.” The words are softer still and quieter, but he can feel something inside him unraveling when she says it all the same. He knows, then, that he cannot show her - for if he shows her, if he even attempts, he thinks the trust and faith and soft flicker of _something_ she has for him will be forever extinguished, snuffed out as easy as candle flame. He can live with the third fate, can live with knowing his feelings are not reciprocated. But losing her trust, her faith…her friendship? He could go on, but his world would narrow to what it was before: death and his work. Death would become his only work. And that’s a lonely existence for anyone, even him. 

So Henry looks into Jo’s dark eyes and murmurs, “You have my word.”

He wonders if she knows it isn’t the only thing of his she’s come to have. Later, much later, when she’s tired him out of stories and near exhausted his voice, she presses a lingering kiss to his cheek and offers a _thank you_ of her own. It is a soft thing, as soft as snow and warm as honey and melted chocolate.

And then it’s his turn to give her a confused tilt of his head and ask, “For what, Detective?”

“For letting me in.” She says as she rises from her sitting position, smile in her voice when she adds, "For trying.” 

“I will always try, when it comes to you.” Cheek still warm from where she’s kissed, he stands to meet her halfway. 

“Hanson and Reece put you up to it?” He thinks that smile in he voice turns a shade knowing, now, and he pauses a moment to try and delay her satisfaction. But it’s no use, for as soon as the murmured, “perhaps…they played a part” is out of his lips and into the chilly air around them, she is grinning, grinning, grinning.

“Knew it."

And though both linger there, standing close but not quite touching, he knows this is goodbye. He knows it in his head and heart but hopes, hopes with his very soul, that it is not forever. She doesn’t quite look at him when she says that she needs some time, and he nods his understanding. For a moment though, just one, it almost sounds like she's talking about something other than his secret.

Something that has nothing to do with his long, long life and inexplicable immortality. Something that has nothing to do with running, with disappearing into the night and becoming nothing more than a ghost to all who once knew him. Something that has nothing to do with falsified records, secrets, and lies. Because for a moment, it sounds like she's talking about them. About _almosts_ and _maybes_ and another life, a better life, where Paris is possible, where _they_ are possible.

The moment passes as soon as it comes, and he blinks the stardust out of his eyes before he murmurs, “If there’s one thing I have in this life, it’s time. And I want you to take all the time you need.”

He reaches into his inner coat pocket, then, bringing out his pocket watch for her to see. The gold of it glimmers in the low light of the lamps and the snow, and he offers it to her with no pretense of ever taking it back. She sputters something about it being expensive, to which he replies that he cares not for its monetary value. She tries again to refuse it, murmuring that it’s a family heirloom. And he cannot help but smile at her as he moves his free hand to ghost over her cheek. She falls quiet at the touch, closing her eyes for the barest hint of a moment before opening them again.

“I wouldn’t make such an offer if I didn’t already consider you family, Jo.” It’s rare for Henry to call her by her first name, with only the deepest of emotions drawing such an informality out of him. But here, standing beneath the midnight-blue sky with all its stars hidden by cloud cover and snowstorm, he cannot think to call her anything else. The single thought whispers again of the truth he won’t say, but he thinks she knows anyway. 

Jo takes the pocket watch from him, then, takes time from him, then, around the softest of smiles. He has lived lifetimes, centuries, with the constant tick of time echoing in his ears. And he’s not given it up to anyone, not even once, in the way he’s giving it to Jo now. He thinks this too, whispers and even _aches_ of the second secret that lives in his heart, his soul. Because not once in his life has he dared lived without his pocket watch, without time, to ground him to the present. But he doesn’t need it anymore, because he has Jo to ground him, now. And maybe she will not always be here, maybe she will not always be a lighthouse calling him home, be an anchor mooring him to reality, but for now? For now she is. And she needs time.

He is not afraid to give that to her, in this moment. He is not afraid to be open, to be vulnerable, to _feel_ in this moment. It is breathtaking, this moment. But then again, he really shouldn’t be surprised - because so too is the woman he’s sharing it with.

* * *

The storm starts up anew on the walk back over to her car, flurries of snow crystals crowning their heads in a fine layer of white once again. He looks to the sky for but a moment, then, catching sight of a single star glimmering above him. Its brilliant gleam lasts but an instant, but he’d recognize that brilliance in this world or the next, in this plane of existence or any other. 

And Henry cannot help but smile, crooked and warm, as he meets Jo’s gaze again. “I know you may not yet believe me, but I want you to know that I've meant every word I’ve said tonight.” 

Then, he dares draw closer to press a barely-there kiss to her hairline before pulling away. “Because you are more than my partner, my friend.” 

They’re standing so close that their noses nearly brush, and if either of them were to move but an inch closer, he thinks he could press a barely-there kiss to her lips. But what he has to say in this moment is infinitely more important than a kiss. Though his voice sounds much like the way one feels when he murmurs, "You are someone I cherish, deeply, and someone I consider family.”

She seems different in that next moment, detached from the situation. For she's less Jo and more Detective Martinez in that moment - and he wonders if exhaustion and disbelief's driven her there. He can't fault her for her sudden shift in mood, thinks it much like earlier, when she'd had a fierce need to have him promise he wouldn't do anything rash, anything dangerous He imagines that this second shift is born less out of concern for his wellbeing and more concern for her own, though. And really, he cannot fault her for it, either. He can understand the need to distance herself from all he's told her thus far, can understand the need to take a step back from the situation. For it's as impossible as his life.

She doesn't touch him, now, only offers him the smallest of smiles as she murmurs, "You too, Henry. You too."

But the single phrase is enough for him, in that moment. Because even though she doesn't understand, even though she might not even _want_ to understand, she still thinks of him as family. All the family he has is long gone, and he knows little of the family she has. But to be a part of one of her innermost circles of loved ones, to be included in the intimacy and importance the word "family" stirs...oh, he hadn't dared dream she'd ever say those words to him, especially after delving into the impossibility that is his story.

She's gone after those words, though, ducking into her car and driving away into the night rather than lingering any longer. The red of her headlights seeps onto the falling snow, and he’s never felt at once so heavy and hopeful as he does now, standing in the swirling of two storms. One unfolds in the air around him, and the other…the other resides in his heart. He doesn't hope that she believes him, for that doesn't truly matter. No, he hopes instead that she  _stays -_ and he hasn't hoped for such a thing in a long, long while. It's been years, even decades, since he last dared hope. But he supposes it's been just as long since he's allowed himself to be so open, so vulnerable. And it thrills him as much as it terrifies him.

* * *

The wind works against him as he makes the long walk home, trek made all the longer by the snowstorm. His mind wanders over many a thing as he walks, but always, it comes back to Jo. He knows well that she doesn’t believe him about his immortality. And really, why should she? He’s given her no tangible proof of it, and she needs that proof. So when he arrives home at last, he shrugs off his layers and gets to work.

He compiles photo albums, journals, even various pieces of clothing together, all to try and provide her with the evidence she'll so desperately needs to believe him, later. And he almost believes there'll be a later, for them. But even so, he knows that he could show her all manner of objects and it wouldn’t be enough. He owns an antique’s shop, after all, and the photographs he holds in his hands could’ve been manipulated with some software or another. Or even staged from the very beginning, he supposes as he sinks down onto the couch. He’s at once exhausted and so very awake, mind alight with what he needs to do next. He needs to _do_ something, distract his head and hands so as not to be overtaken by another wave of madness.

A long shower and change of clothes later, and Henry deems himself ready to face the day. He’s not yet had his morning tea and breakfast with Abe, but he reasons that it’s much too early for even his son to be awake. So he makes himself a cup of tea and pours it not into his usual cup, but a thermos, before starting out for the morgue. The cold’s set in and covered the sidewalk in a few awful patches of ice here and there, but he’d prefer to walk rather than hail a cab. Though it’s been months since that night in the cab with Adam, he still can’t get the image out his head - and he wants not to play into the man’s twisting and disgusting idea of a game. He takes a long sip of his tea and heads inside a quaint and cozy cafe on his way to work. The line’s not too long, though he knows he’d wait even if it was.

“Hi! What can I get you today?” Says an Asian young woman with a bright smile once he arrives at the counter.

He scans the menu for something Lucas would like and settles on a dark roast coffee and a doughnut.

“Would you like sprinkles with that?” She asks then.

Henry smiles at the question and, knowing his assistant, murmurs, “I uh…yes, that’d be lovely. Might you put rainbow sprinkles on the doughnut, if at all possible?”

The girl gives a nod of her head and another smile as she says, “Totally possible!”

She rings up his order after that, and he gives her more than enough money to cover the coffee and sweet treat. When she moves to hand him his change, he shakes his head and murmurs that she should keep it. She blinks once, twice, as if she hadn’t heard him right, as if somehow she’s been mistaken. Henry imagines that her tips are few and far between this early in the morning. Her name tag reads Jia, and he looks to it a moment before again saying that she can keep the change. Jia. Oh, where does he know that name from?

When he picks up his order a good few minutes later, he smiles at Jia and murmurs, “Thank you, Jia. Have a lovely morning.”

Jia just grins and grins and grins at him in response. It’s only once he’s moved towards the door that he hears her call out, “Hey, could you tell Lucas to call me?” 

He turns, then, smile still lingering on his lips as he says, “Ah, so that’s where I’ve heard your name from.” His assistant talks about her about as much as he talks about his graphic novel happenings, and that’s saying something. She lets out a laugh, then, and he adds, "Yes, I’ll tell him” around a smile before ducking out of the shop and heading on his way.

* * *

 It’s a long while before Lucas arrives at the morgue. He leans against the doorway for quite some time, just watching Henry do his work. And Henry doesn’t mind, really. For he’s used to the casual observation by now, wholly accustomed to being observed by his assistant. He knows not why Lucas admires his work so much, but he appreciates that admiration all the same.

“I left your breakfast in the break room. One dark roast coffee and rainbow-sprinkled doughnut to go.” He says without looking up from one of last week’s victims. They hadn’t quite manage to solve her case, then, but he imagines that looking to it with a clearer head now will help, some.

“You remembered how I take my breakfast.” Lucas says in response, wonder coloring his words. “I…no one here's ever bought me breakfast.” He seems to consider that a moment, and is quick to add, “Well, not since Anton, anyway. And that doesn’t really count, seeing as the doughnuts were just a distraction.” 

Used to Lucas’ ever-changing trains of thoughts, Henry simply smiles and says only, “A rather good one, if I remember correct. And if I forgot to mention it before, then Jia said she’d like you to call her.”

His assistant brightens somewhat, smile blooming across his lips at the barista’s name. Henry thinks that his assistant murmurs something about calling her after work, or on his lunch break or something. And upon remembering the endless, endless night before, Henry suggests that he talk to her soon, before he loses the chance. Lucas seems to take the suggestion in stride and agrees, with Henry turning his attention to the victim again soon after. There’s something here he isn’t seeing, something he’s missing even now. But what? He isn’t ready to declare that their victim wasn’t truly murdered, because he has a feeling that she most certainly was. If only he could figure out how…

“I’m sorry about your wife, by the way.” Comes the sound of Lucas’ voice from the doorway. If it weren’t for the words that’d just left his mouth, Henry’d probably think it ridiculous he hadn’t ventured into the room yet.

But his mind catches and snags on _wife_ , then, and he has to wonder when Jo told him. Or if he even needed to be told at all. For Lucas is rather brilliant, and often strings together the vaguest of details on their cases to arrive at an answer. It seems he’s applied those same skills to arrive at his current thought, or been told about as much by one detective with dark hair and warm eyes. He can’t say he minds much, in either case.

“Thank you, Lucas.” He says around a grateful half-smile as he looks to him.

And Lucas just gives a shrug of his shoulders and murmurs that it’s no problem, that there’s no need to thank him. Henry knows, then, that Lucas isn’t judging him or his relationship with Abigail. He asks not how old either of them were when they met, nor does he inquire about their marriage. He only tilts his head to the side and asks, “Y’need some help with Janie?”

Henry glances to the victim laid out before him, then, looking all too small on the examining slab. The back of her heels don’t even meet the slab’s end, not by any stretch of his imagination or Lucas’. And that’s saying something, for Lucas’ imagination is near infinite in its abilities, as his assistant’s proven time and time again. Henry knows he'd gotten near to a breaking point the last time he’d endeavored to go at a case like this alone, and he doesn’t want to reach that same point now. 

So he gives another half-smile at Lucas’ offer and murmurs, “Yes, I think I quite need your assistance and attention to detail with our Jane, here.”

Lucas steps into the room as Henry moves a stray dark lock of hair behind the victim’s tiny, tiny brown ear. They work in silence a long while, neither speaking as they try to determine her identity. Her weight's normal for her age, and her height taller. She's of Indian heritage and very, very small. It seems everything else they find leads to dead end after dead end, no matter how many tests they run or pieces of promising evidence they find. Nothing’s adding up, nothing’s making sense, and he needs it to. He needs it to, because he is looking into the chest cavity of a child and trying, trying, so hard to find a way her death _makes sense_. But he cannot make sense of the senseless, cannot see why anyone would do such harm to a child. He knows not how long he and Lucas work, only that his hands ache with the effort and his joints cry out in agony for every minute he remains standing. But he won’t let himself sit, for if he sits, he knows he will crumble under the weight of this case.

“I was thinking I might take some personal days off.” Henry says after long, long minutes of quiet.

And Lucas just looks to Henry's office, where a monstrous stack of forms sit on his desk. Lucas doesn't mention that he’s not taken a day off in the three years they’ve known each other, or dares ask why he’s taking those days. Because he knows. He knows and he just winces and asks, “Doc, how long have you been here?” 

“Since about five thirty seven this morning, but I’ve been awake for far longer.” His assistant’s gaze sweeps over the dark half-moons under his eyes, then, and he adds a softer, lower, "Not that I was keeping track, anyway.”

Lucas tries telling him to go home, get some rest, to which Henry looks to the child between them and says, “Her family deserves to know what happened, and Jo’s-“

“Gonna be here tomorrow.” Though Lucas knows not what’s happened between them, he says it again with such conviction that Henry almost believes him. “She’s gonna be here tomorrow, Henry. Always is.”

Of course she’ll be here tomorrow, Henry reasons with himself. Of course she will, for this is what she does each day. But he doesn’t think she'll be here in the morgue, doesn’t imagine her venturing all the way down here as she would any other time. Because this isn't any other time, for any other time he'd almost come to expect to hear her approaching footsteps or warm voice as she stepped off the elevator to meet him halfway. But he can’t expect that now, doesn’t, because she’d asked for time and he respects that wish. Understands it, even, the need for some time away. Time to think, to process. And quite possibly, to consider if they’re still partners. He hopes that at the very least, they can still be that much. Oh, dear Gods, how he hopes they can still be that much when all of this is said and done.

"And don’t worry about Janie, okay?” Lucas’ gaze moves from Henry to the small girl, then, and he brushes her bangs back behind her ear before he meets his eyes again. "If I find something, anything, I’ll call you and let you know.”

“Please do, her-“ He pauses here, breath catching on a wave of emotion. “Her family will probably want to cremate her as soon as possible, once they’re able to claim her. But we need her name first, Lucas."

“I’ll get it.” Lucas says then, before he murmurs, “Promise, Doc. I’ll figure it out, and I’ll call her family the minute I do.”

He believes him, in that moment. If not about Jo, then at least about their Jane Doe. If he could entrust this particular victim with only one person in the morgue, he’d surely entrust her to Lucas and Lucas alone. Not only because he is brilliant, but because he understands. Beneath his ever-changing trains of thoughts and random, rambling stories, he understands the mark death leaves on those closest to a victim. And Henry knows his assistant will figure this out.

“Thank you, Lucas.” Henry moves around the examining slab and presses a kiss to Lucas’ temple, then. Lucas just shakes his head, grins, and lets him go. 

* * *

The snow’s near melted away by the time he sets out for home again. He slips inside the shop and moves up the stairs to their loft otherwise undetected. Huh. Strange, Abe’s usual one to walk about the shop floor as he awaits a customer to come in for their appointment. But the place is devoid of people altogether, and he’s almost worried when he doesn’t hear Abraham’s shuffling footsteps in their apartment.

His worries are soothed when he hears his son’s voice calling to him from the kitchen. He thinks he says something like _ya missed breakfast!,_ but he can’t be quite too sure over the noise of the city and pounding headache starting just behind his eyes.

“You haven’t passed up on my English breakfast in years, Pops.” Abraham says as he moves into the living room, gaze steady on Henry’s as he asks, What happened last night, huh?”

Everything, he thinks as the night’s events replay before his eyes. He thinks his son already knows how the first half of the night went, the whispered “just once” between him and Jo included in that. But he recounts the previous evening for Abraham anyway, choosing to skim over that soft conversation he and the good Detective had had on the couch. And though Henry has a feeling Abe knows he’s getting the condensed version (he always has, even at the tender age of nine and a half), he bothers not to interrupt or ask for more details. They’ll come out someday, as they always do. He tells him all about their living room conversation, and the almost surreal walk to her home, where the snow felt like a whisper of approval from their ghosts. He tells him all about their talk in Jo’s own living room, too, before they’d donned their layers anew and drove ‘round the city. 

Here, he gives Abe a pointed look and says, “But you know, I do still wonder how she got hold of one of my scarves. Curious, that little detail.”

Abraham gives a duck of his head that doesn’t quite hide his smile, then, like he’s still very much nine and a half and guilty of some small wrongdoing. “Curious indeed. But the blue suited her, didn’t it?”

Henry exhales long into the morning and shakes his head. “Only you, Abraham. Only you would incriminate yourself in such an easy manner.” And he, too, cannot quite hide his smile as he says so.

He goes on to recount their city drive, then, smile lingering on his lips when he murmurs that Jo’d thought it’d help ease some of his panic, his fears. Abe tilts his head to the side in question, as if to ask, _and did it_? Henry hears the unspoken questions, reads it in his expression, and says that yes, it did - if only somewhat. But it’d been enough, and he’d opened up to her a touch more as they began their stroll through the park. He again finds himself skimming over the more private details of their conversation, leaving out his not-so subtle attempt at voicing his feelings for her and her not-so subtle attempt at calling him out for it. Yet he cannot bring himself to skip over one particular point of conversation between them, though it pains him to even mention.

He heaves out a heavy sigh and murmurs, “I told her, Abe. Or I tried. But she didn’t believe me, didn’t know what to think, and when I offered to show her, she-"

He pauses, then, moving a hand over his face and exhaling long into the day. As he moves his hand away from his face a moment later, he reminds himself the scenario could’ve gone much, much worse. She could’ve stormed away from him without another word, could’ve stared him dead in the face and said she never wanted to see him again. She could’ve called him a liar and told her they were through. And though he knows she didn’t, hasn’t, the conversation still looms heavy in his heart and mind. Heaviest, he thinks, in his heart.

“Dad, I thought we agreed you weren’t gonna pull that one again.” Abe’s voice cuts into his thoughts, then.

“Yes, well-" Henry shakes his head as he ventures into the living room and settles down in the reclining chair, feeling tired in a way he hasn’t in months. Years. “I suppose I don’t think quite as clearly when I’m scared.”

“You? Scared? But the only thing you’re afraid of is…” And then, as if all at once, Abraham realizes Henry’s second truth: that he is wholly and unendingly in love with one Detective Jo Martinez. 

Secret more or less revealed, now, Henry confesses that when she’d asked him for time, he’d given her his pocket watch and told her to take all the time she needed.

“And I intend to honor her wishes.” He says then, voice lower and softer when he muses, “Though really, upon thinking about it, I don’t think it truly matters if she believes me or not. I’d like her to, of course, but-“ Here, he shakes his head and murmurs that her belief isn’t the point. “Because the point is that I don’t want to lose her friendship, Abe.”

“Oh.” Abe looks to him with a mix of wonder and outright surprise when he says it again, then. "O _h.”_  

A rueful smile curves his lips at the phrase even now. Heaven help him, for all he’d thought in the last fourteen hours. He’d thought her lovely, unendingly so. He’d thought her arms felt like home and her kiss like finding shore after a long time underwater. He’d thought today would be the end of them, of all they’d come to be. He’d thought she’d want nothing to do with him once he’d begun telling her his long, long story. He’d thought she’d give up on him, maybe even turn him away. But she’d laughed at his awful jokes about time as they sat on his couch and smiled at him as they walked towards her home together. And for the first time in a long time, he’d thought _to hope_. Because she’d dared try to soothe his worries, ease his panic, and hold his hand even after all he’d told her. For that and so much more, infinitely more, he’d thought himself lucky to have lived this long, long enough to meet her, know her.

Abe offers to go make Henry tea, then, muttering something like, “How in the world did I not see this before?” as he moves into the kitchen. Henry accepts the offer as he lounges in the chair, somewhere between the waking world and that of dreams.

Long beats of quiet pass and stretch before him, but he knows not how much time passes. He doesn’t have his pocket watch anymore, and he doesn’t care to look at any number of the antique clocks hanging up on the wall. For the latter would mean opening his eyes, and the movement seems like far more trouble than it’s worth. 

He’s roused from that hazy, soft place between dreams and the waking world when he hears someone step into the room again. Abe?

“Tea’s ready.” Comes a voice somewhere above him, sounding much too loud for such close proximity. Definitely Abe.

Henry drags himself up from the depths of exhaustion, then, opening his bleary eyes to focus on his son as he stands there with a teacup in hand. He takes the offered cup and cradles it with both hands, inhaling the rich aroma that rises from the tea in warm tendrils of steam. Abe takes up his own cup and settles down on the couch beside him after a moment.

They drink in silence a while, each leaning forward to grab a biscuit off the tea tray sat on the table. Both of them then dip said biscuits into their tea, with Abe’s movements a near mirror to Henry’s. Or perhaps it’s the other way around, really. He supposes that he could’ve learned such a gesture from Abe years and years ago, but imagines that in truth, both simply picked it up from Abigail. 

Abe tilts his head to the side as he looks to Henry, now. “Where d’you go when you do that whole unseeing-thing of yours?”

“Better times, usually.” Henry murmurs in between sips of his tea, easy smile on his face as he says, “Mostly those with you and your mother. Or the ordinary instances that take place before I die. It depends on the day, I suppose.”

Abraham smiles too, then, though it proves fast-fading as a dark look flits across his features.

“Speaking of Mom, I uh…” He heaves a long sigh before speaking again. “I heard back from the crematory people today.”

“Oh?” A few days ago, he’s sure the words would’ve knocked the breath out of him. And though they certainly weigh heavy on his heart, now, they don’t threaten to crush it to dust as they might’ve before. So he can breathe, can think past _crematory_.

Still, Henry’s glad for Abraham’s hand squeezing his own as he nods his head in agreement and says, “Yeah. They asked who’d be completing the release forms, but I told them I’d have to get back to them on that.”

“And why ever did you say that? I thought we’d already agreed-“ Henry starts, then.

“We did.” He finishes. And life surprises him in the next moment, _Abe_ surprises him in the next moment, when he says, “But I thought we’d fill it out together” around a smile. 

Henry gives him a grateful half-smile in return and murmurs that it means a lot to him, such consideration. And Abe just shrugs his shoulders and says that he thinks it’s what his mum would want. Conversation shifts to where they’ll scatter her ashes once the whole process is through, though Abe does veer off topic a touch when he questions the antiquity of the urn they’d selected. 

“I swear, you’ve become even worse than your mother.” Henry says around the rim of his cup, taking a long sip of tea before speaking again. “She’d once told me, ‘y’know, darling, we could have all of your belongings appraised.’” 

Abe sputters with laughter Henry finds contagious, and he can’t seem to keep it out of his voice when he goes on to emphasize, “My _belongings_ , Abraham! We hadn’t even been married a year, then!”

They share stories of Abigail, then, as they so often do on cold, gray days like the one outside their windows.

“D’you remember Hanukkah, 1958?”

“As though I could forget that one,” He says around a smile before he gives a fond shake of his head and murmurs, “She burned the brisket for the fourth year in a row.”

“And then dragged both of us into the kitchen to help with the kugel and latkes.”

The conversation continues on like this for quite some while, ebbing and flowing as they refill their cups with tea and add more biscuits to the tray. He feels lighter than he has in hours, days, though exhaustion weighs on him even now. He’s just about to start in on the days of their car chase in Milan when Abraham says, “But enough about Mom, Henry.”

Before he can steer the conversation back to safer territory, neutral ground, Abe tells him that he isn’t going to let him run from this. “I can’t babysit you forever, y’know. Because unlike you, I’m not gonna be around that long.”

“Abraham, please-” He’s all too aware of his son’s own morality, in these moments, and it scares him.

“No, no.” Abe holds up a staying hand. “Lemme finish, Pops.”

He takes Henry’s silence as a sign of agreement and continues on, then. “You’re happy here in New York, and you’re happy with Jo. You know how long I’ve waited for that, for you to trust someone like that again?”

“Since the early 1970s, I imagine.” Henry mutters under his breath as he moves to set his empty tea cup down on the coffee table.

Though Abe surely hears his comment, he ignores it all the same and says, “I think she’s gonna come around, Dad.” 

He exhales through his nose and murmurs, “I’m not so sure about that, Abraham.” 

Though for a moment, he allows himself to imagine another world, a better world, where Jo does come around to his secret. Where perhaps she doesn’t quite believe him, doesn’t quite understand how it all works, but stays around anyway. And in this better world, they are okay, he and her. In this better world, they figure it out, he and her.

Abe moves off the couch and reaches for their teacups, then. Henry assumes that Abe moves everything over to the tea tray after that, but he can’t be quite certain as his eyes close to the waking world once more. The sound of Abe’s footsteps blend with the noise of city life outside, and both easy comforts lull him into a deep, dreamless sleep in mere minutes. So when Abe comes back from the kitchen, it’s to find Henry nodded off in the reclining chair.

He smiles at the sight and tugs a blanket over him before giving his dad’s shoulder a good squeeze and murmuring, “Yeah, but I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone need tissues? Maybe some ice cream? *leaves 'em out on the table just in case*
> 
> Next up comes the beginning of the end, for we'll delve into the start of episode 01x22. But the ride's not over yet, friends, so don't worry! Between packing for an incredible semester ahead and acclimating to everything Irish, I think updates will be a bit sporadic from here on out. Promise I'll finish this baby, though!
> 
> *Henry Morgan voice*
> 
> You have my word.


End file.
